


The Car Accident

by Tipper



Category: Sneaky Pete (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-07 08:31:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17957150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tipper/pseuds/Tipper
Summary: After Julia found out who he was, all Marius wanted was one more Sunday night dinner with the family. It was a mistake. The trusting way they looked at him, the uncertain wayshelooked at him.... He left early, afraid to sink any deeper. The black truck came out of nowhere as he drove away...





	1. The Dark and Windy Road

“Pete!”

“Pete?”

“Pete, can you hear me?”

“Pete!”

 _Worse than an alarm clock stuck on the buzzer_. That was Marius’ first thought as he regained consciousness. He’d been swimming rather nicely in a dark void, enjoying the freedom that came with a lack of dreams (or nightmares), but the incessant yelling finally broke through and brought him reluctantly to the surface.

And, as he did, so came the pain.

It was faint at first, a bit like a mild crick in the neck after sleeping wrong, or a headache from having one too many, but then the aches grew into full on screaming pain, and the headache felt like his head was going to explode. 

He wanted to scream…it came out as a low groan.

“There you are! Oh, thank god. Can you open your eyes for me? Come on, open those baby blues, Pete. Wait, your eyes are brown, aren’t they? Shoot. Just open them, okay?”

Only because he couldn’t fathom what the hell was going on, he did as he was bid. He knew the voice. It was Taylor.

His pseudo-cousin’s obnoxious face floated into view over him, and he understood he was lying on his side. Or…sitting on his side? Was the chair sideways? And what was that smell? He needed more information.

“What happened?” he drawled, his words slurring as if he were drunk. Had he been drinking?

“You’ve been in a car accident,” Taylor said. “A nasty one. Some asshole in a black truck blindsided you and sent you into the drainage ditch next to the road.”

Ah, now he understood. The smell was dead car: hot metal, leaking fluids and dying electricity. He hated that smell. He’d totaled his first car when he was seventeen, an old Pontiac firebird that he’d spent all his (stolen) savings on to buy and fix up, and the memory of its destruction still haunted him. When he closed his eyes, he could still see it lying on the side of--

“Hey, hey,” Taylor said, “No going back to sleep now. I need you awake, because I need to get you out of this twisted hunk of junk.”

Marius opened his eyes again, trying not to be worried that he didn’t actually recall closing them, and looked at Taylor. Taylor, curiously, was all smiles, as if he were trying to placate a scared dog. Or Carly. 

“We need to get you out. Can you move?”

Marius took better stock of his surroundings then. He was sitting in the driver’s seat of his little car – but the car was tilted because the driver’s side tires were in a ditch and the left remained perched on the road. There was water seeping in through the broken passenger side door. He glanced at the glove compartment, where he had a gun and five thousand dollars in cash. His hand lifted weakly in that direction.

“Now, now, you can get your stuff later. Right now, I need you to figure out if you’re injured, okay?”

Marius understood what was happening now. Taylor was in cop mode. Over the next few minutes, he let Taylor tell him what to do, to determine his physical state. When it was done, Taylor reached into the car through the open driver door and, without much help from Marius, got him out of the car.

When he was kneeling on the grassy bank between the ditch and the road, Marius threw up. It burnt and felt like chaos. All through it, Taylor gently rubbed his back. 

“Okay, you’re okay,” Taylor said, his voice beginning to grate on Marius’ nerves. 

“I’m not a child,” he snapped after Taylor repeated for the hundredth time that he “would be okay.” “Stop talking to me like one. It’s just a car accident.”

“I know that,” Taylor said, sounding a little miffed. “As for it just being a car accident? That I’m not so sure about.”

Marius frowned at that, and looked up. “What?”

“I’m not sure, but…. Look, you’re lucky I wasn’t far behind you after we left Grandma’s, because I saw the jackass that hit you get out of his truck with what looked like a tire iron. I don’t think he was trying to help you. I hit the horn on my car, which spooked him and he ran back to his truck and took off. If it weren’t night, I’d have caught more detail, but his plates had mud on them.”

Marius puzzled over that. “You’re saying…” He frowned some more. “You think he hit me on purpose?”

“I think so, yeah. I didn’t see it entirely, because I was still a ways back when it happened, but I could see your taillights through the trees. I saw his headlights peel out from a side road and, next thing I know, there was screaming metal and you were in the ditch. I think he ran you off and maybe would have done more if I hadn’t shown up and flashed my lights.”

Marius blinked, trying to clear the fuzziness from his mind (the massive headache really didn’t help). Someone had tried to kill him? Why?

“Why would someone want to hurt you, Pete?” Taylor asked then, sounding more like the cop he was. 

Marius pressed his eyes shut, breathing a few times to calm his still jangled nerves, and then shook his head.

Which was a bad idea. The world spun and it was only luck that more food didn’t come up. With a groan, he rested a hand to his forehead, which now had a full drum squad beating against it. _Don’t move your head, idiot._

When he pulled his hand away, he saw the blood on his fingers. He was bleeding.

“I’m bleeding,” he repeated out loud, somewhat stupidly. 

“Yeah, the window’s toast, some of it might be in your face. I need to get you to a hospital.” At Taylor’s words, the drums in Marius’ head suddenly increased in pitch, but not from pain – from anxiety. “Come on, let’s—“

“No,” Marius said. “Taylor, please, no hospitals.” His voice was full of fear, and he didn’t care.

“What?”

“I can’t. I’m not…please, no hospital.”

“Dude. No. You’re hurt. You can’t see you, but I can, and it’s not pretty. Based on how you look, there’s no way you can’t tell me that you’re not in a whole world of pain right now.”

“I’m fine,” Marius said, but even as he said it, a wave of pain washed over him, and he groaned again.

“Yeah, sure. We need to get you to a hospital. I also need to call in this thing. If that truck’s still in town, maybe we can—“

“No, no, please, don’t.”

“Now I know you’re crazy. Why the hell not? That guy could’ve killed you! I have to report that!”

“You can’t tell. Please.”

“You seriously think I can cover this up? Have you seen your car?”

He looked. It was badly dented and three quarters on its side, but it didn’t look terrible. He’d seen worse at monster truck rallies, and those old beaters often had more life in them than they appeared. He could see the blood on the deflated air bags though – Taylor was right, the driver’s side window was mostly shards and air. 

“That’s not so bad,” he said to Taylor.

“Not so bad? Seriously, how badly did you hit your head?”

“Julia can help.”

“What?”

“She…she can. She can tow the car or something. Get it to a shop.”

“Right, enough. You need to explain your crazy right now, or I’m going to call this in.” Taylor crossed his arms, his anger briefly overcoming the worry that had been dominating his features.

A million explanations ran through Marius’ head like a spinning rolodex, but his instincts had already chosen. All good cons relied on a story closest to the truth. He turned away from the car and looked up at Taylor, his eyes as pathetic as he could manage when in this much pain. 

“You can’t call this in because…. Because I’m not supposed to be here.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m on parole.”

“So?”

“In New York.”

Taylor’s eyes widened, then he swore. “What the fuck, Pete! You’re violating parole? Why the hell would you do that?”

“Because…because…after I got out, all I wanted was…was to come home.” Marius gave him his best puppy dog look. “To family.”

Taylor’s anger faded slightly, but he still pouted and the arms were still crossed.

“That is incredibly stupid, Pete.”

“I know. I know, but I didn’t know if they’d let me come here, so I just sort of came. If you check me into a hospital in Connecticut, they’re going to tag me and I could go back to jail.”

Taylor sighed heavily. Then he shook his head. “God _damn_ it, Pete.”

“You could…you could take me to…to one in New York.”

“I can’t leave the scene of an accident, Pete.”

“Then…then don’t call that in either,” Marius said. “Just call Julia. She can take care of it.”

Taylor’s frown deepened.

“You know,” the big man said, “I don’t like the fact that you and Julia have been thick as thieves these last couple of weeks, ever since that thing with Luis Mercado. She looks at you like she owes you. I don’t like that.”

“Please, Taylor.”

“And I also don’t like the fact that I think whoever did this, did it on purpose.”

“I doubt that,” Marius said. “Why would…would…oh man…” He touched his head again. “it’s really spinny.”

He wasn’t actually kidding. The world was spinning. It was like the worst hangover imaginable. His stomach lurched, and he found himself throwing up again. Vaguely, he heard Taylor whine angrily about something, but then the hand was on his back again, rubbing gently in circles. He really was a strange mix of person.

He lost a little time then, because next thing he knew clearly, he was in Taylor’s car and they were driving at 90 down the highway. It was an odd sensation – normally he didn’t feel movement, but right now he swore he could feel every inch of speed. The world outside, where it was still night, was a blur of color and black. Nothing was very clear, even in the distance.

“Taylor?” he said.

“You fucking asshole,” Taylor snarled.

“What’s happening?”

“I’m taking you to fucking New York, that’s what’s fucking happening.”

Marius tried not to smile. That, at least, was something. He shifted as the aches and pains in his body made themselves known, and was pleased to feel his phone still in his pocket. 

“What about the car?” he asked Taylor.

“Julia’s taking care of it. Said she already knew about your parole officer.”

“Yeah,” Marius said. That had been a hard thing. She’d ambushed Bagwell a few weeks back, and then confronted Marius about pretending to be Pete. She probably would have told the whole family if Luis Mercado hadn’t taken almost that exact same moment to demand Julia cough up all the money Valerie stole plus recompense for taking away his revenge. Marius had helped her survive, and they’d even gotten Luis put away, and, in return, Julia had seemed to change her mind about telling the family. He knew, of course, that it would come out eventually, but having one more Sunday dinner now that Julia was safe again had made it feel worth it. 

He’d honestly just wanted one more dinner with the family. Just one.

“What’s really going on, Pete?” Taylor asked then. “First with that thing with that dirty cop, then the gangster, Vince, then with Aunt Maggie … How much shit are you really in?”

Marius snorted a laugh. The way he felt right now, too much. 

Except that he really didn’t know who might have wanted to kill him. Taylor had just named the most dangerous people in his life, and they were no longer an issue. So…

“Honestly?” he said. “Right now, nothing. I have no idea why that guy hit me.”

“You lying to me right now?”

“No. I really don’t know.”

Taylor frowned deeply. 

“Do you think anyone else in the family is in danger?”

Marius tensed his jaw, considering. “I…maybe. I don’t know. I just don’t know. I’m sorry.”

Taylor grunted unhappily. 

I-95 at night was a dark road and they were barreling down it much too fast. For some reason, it was raising his anxiety levels, which wasn’t helping his stomach or head. Marius thought about suggesting Taylor slow down, but, then again, maybe getting to a hospital sooner rather than later wasn’t the worst idea.

“Taylor,” he said again.

“What?” 

Man, he practically bit that word off. He was really angry. Not that that was all that unusual for Taylor.

“Don’t come in with me.”

Taylor blinked. “What? What are you talking about?”

“When we get to the hospital, just drop me off. I’ll check myself in.”

“Why?”

“Because…” Marius grimaced. “If that guy really was trying to kill me, I don’t want you involved.”

“That’s stupid. You’re family. Of course, I’m involved.”

“He may not know you’re my family.”

“He hit you in Bridgeport, Pete, driving back to your motel from the farm. He knew where you were coming from. Stands to reason he knows about the rest of us.”

“Yeah,” Marius said, putting a hand to his aching and now sticky head. “Maybe. Or he might just think I’m conning you.”

Taylor’s brow furrowed, his lips dipping down into a frown.

Marius sucked in a ragged breath, rubbing at his forehead. “You know I’m a criminal, Taylor. Mom and me…” He hesitated briefly, then plunged on. “We’re grifters.”

Curiously, Taylor’s brow unfurrowed with that.

“You know,” he said slowly, “that makes sense.” He glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, as if looking at Marius would solidify that truth in his mind. “The way you worm your way around things, how fast you talk, how anxious you always seem…. I wanted to think it was just the New York City in you, but it’s more than that.” He glanced at him, his expression sad. “How long you been doing it?”

“Since we left. Most of my life. We didn’t have much and…and…”

“And you had to take care of her, your mom.”

For a brief moment, Marius almost said, “yeah, and Eddie,” but stopped himself in time. He did what he could to push away the tiredness that was close to making him sloppy. 

“Anyway,” Marius said, “point is…” He sighed “We might’ve pissed off some people over the years.”

Taylor just grunted an acceptance of that fact.

“And it’s possible…” Marius continued, “…that one of them may have tracked me down. And if that’s true, I don’t want it getting back to you or the family.”

“I still don’t think—“

“And I especially don’t want it getting back to you. You’re a cop. Anything I’m into, I want you as far away from it as possible.”

Taylor huffed a laugh at that. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ve heard that before.”

“I’m serious. You’ve already broken the rules by covering up the car accident and driving me to New York. I—“

“I did all those things for you,” Taylor said, and the anger was back.

“I know,” Marius stressed. “I know,” he repeated, a little more softly because he _was_ grateful. “And I don’t want you to get into any more trouble. Just drop me off and stay away. And don’t tell the family, or—“

“Or they’ll insist on visiting you, maybe dragging them into your trouble too,” Taylor said with understanding. “Yeah. I get it.” He sounded miserable, but he was no longer angry.

Marius sighed, feeling guilty now. He was beginning to hate this con. They were easily led, the Bernhardts, but it was getting harder and harder to keep fooling them. Problem was, he’d done the worst thing; he’d gotten attached. And he just…He just didn’t want to let them go. 

“Thanks,” Marius said. And he meant it.

Taylor didn’t reply, so Marius returned to watching the night time world go by. He closed his eyes.

“Hey,” Taylor called after a minute. Or perhaps more than a minute, Marius couldn’t be sure.

“Hmm?” He blinked a few times, trying to open his eyes more fully. It was getting harder to pull himself out of the stupor he could feel himself spiraling into. It was still dark and the highway had begun to feel endless. Was that a sign for Greenwich? So not much further then.

“What name are you going to use at the hospital?” Taylor asked.

“My own.”

“Don’t. Use an alias.”

Marius frowned slightly.

“Why?”

“Don’t be an idiot. You know why, and I suspect you’ve already planned on it. So what name?”

Marius was actually having a little bit of a hard time thinking, to be honest. When he’d said “my own,” he’d meant Pete Murphy, since it didn’t seem known yet, and it was, of course, an alias. But Taylor was right, what if Pete was the target? He really didn’t know that much about the man’s life outside of his childhood. It occurred to him that Pete had never actually talked about those intervening years between the family and jail. 

“Marius,” he said. “I’ll use Marius.” 

“Your friend’s name? The one who left with Aunt Maggie?”

“Yeah. We’ve done it before. Swapped names.” It was true, after all, even if it hadn’t been Pete’s idea. He frowned then, not sure if that was the right choice either. 

Taylor seemed to consider then, then said, “What about your parole officer?”

“Julia knows him. She’ll take care of it. But I’ll probably be in and out of the hospital before it’s an issue.”

Taylor gave him an unhappy look. “I don’t like you involving Julia in your shit.”

“Too late,” Marius said, closing his eyes again.

“Pete,” Taylor called. “Pete, I don’t want you falling unconscious before I can get you to the hospital. They’ll need to talk to you, so you can tell them what’s wrong. Can you stay awake?”

With some effort, Marius opened his eyes again, but he honestly wasn’t sure for how much longer. The world was a prism of color and light, and the headache was ferocious. 

When they crossed the state line, Taylor swung off 95 and headed west onto 287. Marius frowned, fighting the sleepiness trying to bring him down and take him away from the pain.

“Where are we going?”

“White Plains. I looked it up. It’s the closest emergency room. We’ll be there in 10.”

“Oh,” Marius said. “Okay.”

It was possibly the most excruciating ten minutes Marius could remember in his life. His whole body hurt, but his head was by far the worst. Even small movements, like a nod or to turn to look out the window, felt like hell. He was getting worried that he wouldn’t even be able to get out of the car by the time they got there.

Taylor pulled into the emergency entrance, and then looked at Marius. His expression wasn’t guarded. He was really worried.

“Are you sure you don’t need me to go in?” he asked. “The way you look….”

“I’ll be fine,” Marius said. 

Taylor just shook his head, the worry clearly not ebbing one bit. In fact, it almost seemed to get worse. 

So Marius tried a smile. Taylor sighed.

“You know, every so often, when you smile,” Taylor said quietly, “I think you look a little like the Joker.”

Marius’ smile fell. “Huh?”

“Just sometimes, it’s so clearly fake it almost hurts to look at it. And the blood on your face isn’t helping.”

Marius just stared at him, oddly a bit hurt by that. Then he decided that was stupid, and opened the car door. With what felt like everything he had, he climbed out, trying not to let Taylor see how much he hurt. He turned to close the door, and nodded at Taylor.

“Thanks. I owe you.”

Pete’s cousin said nothing, just watched unhappily as Marius shut the door. 

Marius turned and walked towards the entrance, one hand pressing against an ache in his side. The world was spinning again, and he soon found himself focusing just on keeping one foot in front of the other. There were stripes painted on the ground, and he found himself following them. 

When he reached the doors, he stopped to catch his breath, knowing he was panting slightly, and turned enough to look back at the road.

Taylor’s car was gone.

His brain was glad and grateful. He was determined to ignore the way his traitorous heart felt. 

Turning, he somehow managed to successfully walk through the doors into the hospital, but that’s as far as he got. After the cool darkness of night, the light inside was ferociously bright, and he felt assaulted by it. He closed his eyes, unable to handle that level of pain. He had also started to sway, he could feel it, like he was standing on the deck of a ship in a storm.

“Sir?” 

He cracked his eyes, saw a nurse walk out from behind a counter through his lashes. The young man looked worried.

“Car…” Marius managed to say. “There was a car, hit me…”

“Jess,” the nurse called to someone else. “Get Doc Seevers down here!” Then he was jogging over to Marius, who still hadn’t managed to walk any further past the threshold. 

“What’s your name?” the nurse asked as he reached him, getting his hand under Marius’ arm and waving over a gurney.

“Marius…” he answered just as his mind gave up its fight with consciousness.


	2. Making Connections

Taylor banged his hand against the steering wheel. He was on the side of the road not far from the hospital, his head and heart at war with each other. Every instinct told him to go back, to be there for his cousin, no matter what danger there might be. But his mind coldly and calmly suggested the Pete was right. If someone was after Pete, getting him away from the family had been the right thing, and separation was the safest option.

But what if he’d been wrong? What if no one had been after Pete? What if that guy that had hit him had just been drunk? Maybe the tire iron had been to pry open the door, to help Marius out? Or, if it was intentional, maybe Pete was targeted for another reason than his past. What if it had simply been the luck of the draw by being the first to leave the farm after Sunday dinner? What if it had been a threat against the family? And now he had left them alone without protection. But if Pete was the only target, how could he leave him without protection in that hospital? 

Worse, what if Pete died in that hospital, and no one was there with him?

His nerves were getting the better of him as he shakily called Julia. 

She answered after one ring.

“Taylor? Is he okay?”

“He’s in the hospital.”

“What did they say?”

Taylor closed his eyes, swearing under his breath. 

“Taylor?” she asked. “Oh god, is he--?”

“He’s being taken care of,” he hedged. “I’m sure we’ll find out soon.”

She breathed out heavily. “You know, when I saw his car in that ditch, the blood on the air bag,” she began softly, “I immediately thought—”

“Julia, have you seen anyone else on the road to the farm?”

“What?”

“It’s possible the hit might’ve been deliberate.”

She gasped. “And you’re just telling me now?”

“I know. I’m stupid. But it was dark and I couldn’t be sure. Have you seen anyone else on the road?”

“No. Just Murray. He helped tow the car. It’s been quiet. That being said, I didn’t stick around either, Taylor. Once he towed the car, I went home, locked all the doors and waited for you to call. I asked Lance’s parents to keep the kids overnight—I don’t think I’d be a soothing maternal figure right now.”

Taylor nodded. “Can you do me a favor?”

“What?”

“Call Grandma? Make sure everything’s okay up there?”

She huffed nervously. “You think it might’ve been someone after the family?”

“We’ve done some things lately,” he said. “All of us.”

“I know.” He could hear her worrying even through the phone. “Luis Mercado certainly hates us now. And Dockery’s still got a grudge, even though he’s got all his money back.” She breathed shakily. “Shit. Now I’m really glad the kids aren’t here.”

“Just check in on the farm, okay? Maybe say something like… like I’ve heard some chatter that there might be someone out to hurt the family and they should take extra precautions.”

“What if they ask why you’re not telling them yourself?”

“Tell them…tell them I’m heading into the city to talk to someone who may be able to help, and I want a clear head.”

“Are you?”

He frowned. He was surrounded by orange halogen lights, empty parking lots and chain-link fences, all mocking him with their ugliness. He felt the sudden need to see something beautiful. Her face was the first thing that came to mind.

“Yeah,” he said. “I am.”

She snorted. Then she said, “And what do I tell them about Pete?”

“Nothing. Not yet. He actually begged me not to tell them he was hurt. He’s afraid, Julia. He tried to hide it, but he’s really scared. He doesn’t want us involved if someone is really after him.”

“We’re his family, how can we not—?“

“He’s a conman, Julia. There’s a chance if someone’s after him, they won’t know we’re his family. They may just think he’s conning us.”

She was silent for a long while after he said that, so long, in fact, that he’d begun to think she’d hung up.

“Julia?”

“Yeah,” she said, her voice tense. “I’m here. He told you he was a conman?”

“Yeah, not that surprising really. After what I saw of Maggie, what else could he turned out to be?”

Julia breathed heavily. It almost sounded like relief. 

Then she said, “If someone is after him, one of us needs to be there for him. We can’t just leave him alone, no matter what he’s done.”

“I know. And I will be. I’m going to go talk to my friend in the city, then I’m coming back here. I don’t care what he thinks, I’m not leaving him alone.”

She sighed then. “Thank you,” she whispered. Then she added, “I love you, big brother.”

He smiled grimly. That’s how he knew she was scared too. “Love you too,” he said. “I’ll be in touch.”

“Better be,” she said. “Talk to you later.”

She hung up, and Taylor breathed out a small sigh of relief. Then he started the car and started driving towards Manhattan. 

“Hey Siri,” he called into the air, and his phone beeped. “Call Joyce Roby.”  
_______________________________

Marius came awake somewhat slowly, the smell of antiseptic and human bodies filling his nose. His lip curled, he couldn’t help it

He blinked his eyes open, peeking out from beneath his lashes before opening them fully.

He was obviously still in the emergency ward. Curtains separated the beds here, and there was a uniformity to the way they were laid out. He’d seen enough of these over the years to be used to it. There were also the overly bright lights – once you had a room, those got turned down at night. 

It was still night, right?

He cleared his throat and pushed up a little on the bed. Something tugged at his arms, and he looked down at the two IVs. He was also no longer clothed, except for his boxers. They’d removed everything, which made sense since his whole body had ached. His eyebrows lifted at the array of bruises that dotted his torso, still somewhat red, but, from the way they felt, they’d be a deep purple in short order. 

Mercifully, though, his head beat far less. Before, any movement had been excruciating, but he found he could turn it side to side without as much pain. _Thank god for modern medicine._

By his hand was the call button, and he tapped it even as he found himself yawning again. 

Less than a minute later, the curtain whipped back and a young woman with short, curly hair smiled down at him.

“Hi there,” she said, picking up his chart from the end of the bed. “We were awfully worried about you, young man.”

Marius intended to smile to put her more at ease (one of the more important rules of the con), but it seemed like too much work, so he waved a hand instead.

“What--” he croaked, then coughed slightly. Immediately, he grimaced, his hand going to what felt like sore ribs.

“Careful,” she said, reaching past him to a small tray. She came back with a small paper cup in hand. “Drink this.”

He did as he was told, taking in the tepid water with only a small grimace at the chlorinated taste. His throat quickly cooled down.

“Better?” she asked.

He gave a nod. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” She smiled again. “I’m Doctor Jennifer Seevers,” she said. “I’m the one who’s been taking care of you.” Her smile faded. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired. Achey.”

“Achey,” she repeated, writing something down on his chart. “Can you show me where?”

Marius gestured generally to his torso and head.

“Not your legs? How about your back?”

“Um…” He looked down, moving his legs slightly. There was a minor twinge, but more from his stomach as a result of the movement. His back felt sore and tired, but not in pain. “I think they’re okay. I feel the other aches more. And my head hurts the most.”

“That’s not a surprise. You have a concussion and you’ve some deep bruising around your ribs and abdomen. But that is excellent news about your back – we couldn’t be sure how far the damage went. You’ve probably noticed that we’ve given you some mild pain relievers for your injuries, and we’re going to run some tests to check on the rest, to see if we can give you anything stronger. For now,” she continued, “You just need to try and stay as still as possible. Movement could damage you further; you need to let your body heal. I’m afraid you’ll be here for a few days.”

He frowned. A few days? He needed to be out of here sooner than that.

As if to belie that last statement, he yawned again, his eyes struggling to stay open.

“I know you’re tired,” she said then, “but if you could, I have just a few more questions,” she said. “Can you tell us your full name? We know your first name is Marius. What is your last?”

He sighed. “I’d…uh…I’d like to hold onto that for now.”

She frowned. “I’m afraid you’ll have to tell us eventually, and you’ll definitely have to tell the police. From what the nurse who found you at the door told us, you were hit by a car. We do have to report that.”

“I know,” he said, yawning again. “That’s fine. I’ll tell them my name.”

Her eyebrows lifted again, writing that down as well. “Alright. Now, can you tell us exactly what happened to you?” she asked. 

“Car hit me on a crosswalk, then took off. Didn’t really see the car or the driver.” He yawned again. She frowned, but she wrote that down too. He found he was looking up at her almost through his lashes now as his lids really didn’t want to stay up any longer.

“One more question,” she said. “Is there anyone you want us to call?”

He thought of a bunch of names, starting with everyone that lived back in Bridgeport, but he knew that it was all a lie.

“No,” he said, closing his eyes because he just couldn’t keep them open any longer. “There’s no one. I’ve no one.”

If she reacted to that statement, he had no idea, because he was already asleep.  
_________________________________

Taylor saw her standing in front of the small café on the corner and backed into a spot not far down the road. She clearly saw him, because she was standing next to the car when he got out.

She smiled brightly, maybe even blushing a little as he made his way over to the sidewalk.

“Hi,” Roby said, a touch shyly. “It’s…It’s nice to see you.”

“Hi back,” he said. She was wearing a red dress with a jean jacket over it, and a pretty shade of pink lipstick. He’d not seen her in a dress or makeup before. She looked really cute. 

“I didn’t know if you’d call me,” she admitted. “I mean, I thought…maybe you would but then…you’re in Bridgeport and I’m here and—“

Horribly, Taylor suddenly realized that she thought this was a date. He’d not really thought about that when he’d called her and asked if she could meet him. She’d suggested a bar near her place, and he’d agreed, saying something about that being great. As he looked at her, he immediately felt like a heel. 

But that wasn’t why she’d stopped talking. She was looking at his shirt, her smile gone.

“Is that blood?” she asked quietly.

He looked down. Marius’ blood was on his shirt. He hadn’t even noticed. Crap.

“Um…” His face crumpled as he vaguely attempted to close his jacket over it. “Yeah.”

“Whose is it?” Her tone had changed completely now. Where it had been hopeful and airy before, it was that same short, clipped tone she’d had when they’d first met.

“My cousin’s,” he said. “I just dropped him at a hospital up in White Plains.”

Her eyebrows lifted. 

“And I’m not sure,” he said, “But I think someone may be trying to kill him. And I could really use your help.”

She seemed to shut down briefly, clearly torn, but after a time her lips settled into a thin line and the clever, bright detective he’d met in Bridgeport came to the fore.

“Tell me over a beer,” she said curtly, gesturing at the bar behind her with her head.

A few minutes later, both gripping cool bottles of Sam Adams, Taylor told her what had happened. Well, most of it. He left out the part that it happened in Bridgeport. He said something about them being in White Plains because of a party, and driving home in separate cars because they’d each arrived from work. He then explained the accident (or not accident) just as he’d seen it – the truck hitting Pete’s car, the tire iron, the fact that the guy took off. And then he asked her what she thought.

She shrugged. “It sure sounds like it was on purpose. Do you know who would want to hurt your cousin?”

Taylor hesitated for a moment, but, for some reason, he felt sure he could trust her. There was an earnestness to her that didn’t seem to exist in most people, and so he told as much as he dared.

“My cousin,” he began slowly, “didn’t grow up with us. When we were still just kids, his mother followed a guy out west, ditching the rest of us without a word. My grandmother sort of disowned her at the same time, so I’m not 100% sure what happened to them after that, but my Aunt Maggie….” He frowned. “Well, she’s not the most stable of people. She drank and used to pull wild stunts, some pretty dangerous, and she also claimed to hear voices…or something.”

“So,” Roby said, “she’s a little bit nuts.”

“Yeah. And Pete -- it clearly changed him. He was this sweet kid when we were little, fun and alive. But now, it’s like he’s…broken. See, we didn’t see either of them for twenty years, until about a month or two ago when he showed up on our doorstep. At first, it was nice seeing him, but then we started to learn things, like the fact that he’d just gotten out of prison and that…that he was there because he was hiding from someone. He used us, stole money from my grandparents, all because he needed money for some scam here in the city, but, weirdly, he brought it all back plus more. Then Maggie showed up, and…well, I’m glad she’s gone again.”

“A scam here in the city?” Roby said. “What does that mean?”

“A con, I think.”

Roby frowned slightly. “So, he’s a grifter.”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “And, tonight, when I tried to ask him if he knew who might be after him, he just said something about pissing off a lot of people over the years. I think he and my aunt must have fallen into that life, probably when he was still a kid. I’m thinking he had to do it to take care of her and it’s probably all he knows. And now, I honestly don’t think he knows who might be after him, but he was pretty damned scared. So scared, in fact, that he wouldn’t let me stay with him at the hospital. He made me leave, for fear of dragging me in to whatever he’s into.”

“And now you don’t know what to do,” Roby said, her tone kind. “Whether to protect him, or to leave him. Because you’re mad at him, at the mess he’s made, the danger he’s brought on all of you, but he’s still family.”

Taylor grimaced, the truth painful. “Yeah.”

Roby looked down at the table for a moment, as if mapping out the scratches in the wooden surface, then seemed to come to a decision.

“Taylor,” she said, “what I’m about to say may change things, and I’m sorry, but there’s something you need to know.”

Taylor frowned, a little confused by that statement. She took in a deep breath, and began.

“Your cousin is Pete Murphy,” she said, very matter-of-factly. “He and his mother, Margaret Murphy, are persons of interest in several robberies and fraud schemes across several states. Three years ago, he was arrested attempting to rob a gun range, and, a few weeks ago, he was released on some sort of technicality.”

Taylor’s eyes widened. “How—?”

“When I thought your grandmother might be of interest in the Winslow case, I ran a background check on her…and her family.”

Taylor’s eyes remained wide. For some reason, it felt like a betrayal, even though, if he were being honest, it was really just standard procedure. But he wasn’t being honest, and it hurt. He leaned back and crossed his arms, trying not to react badly to the seeming violation. Had she been playing him before? Keeping him by her side as she studied the case to see if he’d slip up?

She clearly noticed, but she made no move to change her own posture. Instead, she just continued on.

“Your cousin became of greater interest to me because it turned out he has a connection to Winslow.”

Taylor just breathed, taking that in. He knew that already, but it still wasn’t good to hear Roby say it in such an official way.

“While he was in prison, he was the cellmate of a man named Marius Josipovic, on whom we don’t have much information beyond some juvenile convictions—mostly for theft—and some arrests, but no convictions, for fraud. Like your cousin, he’s a grifter and, I suspect, a very good one. The only reason he was in prison was because he attempted to rob a bank with a firearm loaded with blanks. The odd thing is, if you look at the tape, he literally ran in, fired the gun in the air, then dropped it and fell to his knees so that he would be arrested. If you check the tape carefully, you can see that he was actually being chased by people we now know to be known associates of Vince Lonigan. The same Vince Lonigan who had Winslow on his payroll.”

Taylor thought back to the man whom Pete and Maggie had brought into their home, the real Marius. He hadn’t much liked the guy, but he had seemed harmless for all that. 

But, wait, wasn’t Pete the one who had been in trouble with Vince Lonigan? 

Now he was the one studying the lines in the table, trying to make sense of it all.

She took his silence as encouragement, because she continued.

“A few weeks ago, around the same time that Detective Winslow was murdered, Vince Lonigan was arrested for the attempted murder of an FBI agent and a federal witness, as well as for running an illegal gaming establishment in Chinatown.”

He looked up at that, he couldn’t help it. Chinatown. Though he didn’t know it for a fact, he was certain Pete had been part of that, not Marius. But…why? 

“Problem is,” Roby continued, her eyes steady and unblinking as she met his gaze, “just this morning, someone murdered that federal agent, and it was most likely on orders from Lonigan. The federal witness is now in Wit Sec, and is refusing to testify in Lonigan’s case because he thinks it’s too dangerous. He described Lonigan as, and I quote, ‘completely batshit crazy.’ So, the FBI is trying to find three other witnesses who were also at Lonigan’s establishment when the events took place: a dealer named Eddie, a woman named Karolina, and a man…named Marius Josipovic.”

Taylor closed his eyes. _Damn it, Pete._

“Because Marius is the only one that could be clearly identified and can’t leave the state, the FBI is focusing its attention on him. Unfortunately, he is not at his official place of residence and clearly hasn’t been there for a while, nor was he at his job, which…” She shrugged. “…Makes sense since it’s Sunday. His parole officer identified an ex-girlfriend that Marius was permitted to visit on weekends despite being in Connecticut, but she claims not to have seen him for a few days. So, now, I would suspect that the FBI are looking for your cousin, Pete Murphy, because, from what the prison has told us, he and Marius were good friends. Marius even visited Pete after he got out. As a result, they think Pete may know where Marius is.” She tilted her head. “Does he?”

Taylor had opened his eyes again, and was now staring dumbly at the bottle of beer in his hand.

_He_ knew where Marius was. He was with Maggie, and there was no way Pete didn’t know where his mom was. 

He looked at Roby, saw the honesty in her gaze despite how cold and calm she was. He sighed.

“Yeah,” he said unhappily. “I’m thinking he might.”

She bit her lip, probably to cover the fact that she was excited, and then leaned forward.

“Taylor, the only reason I know all this is because the FBI read me in today because of my work on the Winslow case. They wanted to know what I knew. I reiterated that it seemed like a professional hit, so there’s no reason for them to look elsewhere on that. But if your cousin knows where Marius Josipovic is, then they are going to start looking deeper into him, into all of you. His best chance is to tell them everything he knows as soon as possible, because…” She paused. “Because I don’t think that guy that hit your cousin’s car was trying to kill your cousin. I think he worked for Vince Lonigan and was going to hurt your cousin until he told him where Marius was, _then_ he was going to kill him.”

_And I left Pete alone,_ Taylor thought dizzily, _without protection._

“I’m not going to ask you where you took your cousin, Taylor. But if you left him alone, then I think you need to get back to him as fast as you can. And…and have him call me. Like I said, the only way for him to be safe is to tell us where Marius is.”

Taylor nodded. He was gripping the bottle so tightly, he wondered if it would shatter.

“You should go,” she said.

He looked up at her. She gave him an encouraging nod. 

“Now,” she added. “Right now.”

“Right.” Standing on shaking legs, he just blinked at her for a moment.

“Thank you, Joyce,” he said weakly.

“Go save your cousin,” she said. 

He gave a weak smile, then turned and practically ran out of the bar to get to his car.


	3. Late Night Conversations

When Marius came awake this time, he found he’d been moved. He was in a room now, one that wasn’t much larger than the bed he occupied, painted the color of a pale sunset. The color was the room’s most pleasant characteristic. The bedsheets and blanket covering him were shades of cream and taupe, their fabric stiff and scratchy. The pillow smelled of bleach and misery beneath his head, and crinkled when he moved. Of furniture, there was one small plastic chair, a tray table, a nightstand with a lamp, and a narrow bookcase with three clearly well-read books in it. One was missing its spine.

There was only one good thing – his clothes, wallet and phone were in a bag sitting on top of a small bookcase, and he sighed in relief. 

Gently, so as not to pull out the IVs that were still in his arms, he stood up and walked slowly to the bookcase, pulling his IVs with him. His limbs felt weak and stiff, which he presumed was related to some sort of fluid build-up, but moving would help.

Ripping the bag open, he found his jacket, shoes, socks and jeans – which they thankfully hadn’t cut off of him; they had been loose. No shirt. Briefly, he considered dressing and taking off, but he was still so tired. Since they didn’t have his full name yet, he should be safe enough until morning or until the cops came. 

Checking his wallet, which was still healthy in the cash department, he put that back in the bag and pulled out his phone. Moving back to sit on the bed, he paused briefly to look at the chart attached to it. They’re written his name as “Marius [insert Surname Here].” It was as good a name as any.

Grimacing as his body complained as he settled down, he dialed the first person on his contact list.

“Marius?” Marjorie asked with obvious exhaustion as she picked up. “This better be good. Do you know what time it is?”

“Yeah,” he said, because he’d seen his phone. It was just past midnight. “And I’m sorry about that, but I think someone tried to kill me tonight.”

“What?” That brought her to full alertness. “What are you talking about?”

“Someone ran me off the road, and then, so I was told, came after me with a tire iron. If my cousin hadn’t shown up, I’m not sure I’d still be here. I think he scared him off.”

She hesitated, then said, “Did you just say _‘my’_ cousin?”

Marius grimaced. “Slip of the tongue.”

She hummed slightly, then said, “So who tried to kill you? And what do you expect me to do about it?”

“Obviously, I don’t expect you to care,” he said dryly. “But the reason I’m calling is because, despite everything, there is only one person I can think of who might want to kill me, besides Winslow.”

She was silent for a moment, then said, “Vince.”

He sighed, resting a hand on his sore lungs. “I don’t know how, but he must have put out a hit.”

“You sure it’s not because of Pete and his mom?”

“No, I’m not sure. It could be something…” He paused to ride out a sharp pain from his side. “…Involving the family, but I’m thinking its Vince.”

“How did he know you were in Bridgeport?”

“Winslow, maybe? I don’t know.” He took in another breath, and winced as his chest felt tighter as a result. “He never said anything about the family, though, so…” He frowned. “I just don’t know.”

She hesitated, then said, “What do you want me to do?”

“Can you check your contacts, see what you can find out? If it is Vince, then something must have happened, maybe to that FBI Agent? If something’s happened, it’ll be news.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“And if it’s Vince, then…call everyone. Warn them. And it might be a good idea to get out of town for a few days.”

She sighed heavily. “That’s inconvenient. I had a pornographic book fair planned for this weekend. Could have been spicy.”

He smiled slightly at the joke, then winced again as a pang of pain radiated up his side. He gasped slightly, emitting a soft swear.

“Marius?”

He cleared his throat.

“Wait, are you hurt? I thought… Are you alright?”

She actually sounded worried, which was kind. And for a moment, he considered being honest, but then saw no point.

“I’ll call Karolina and Eddie,” he said instead. “Call the others, will you? And let me know what you find out.”

She paused, clearly not pleased by the lack of answer, and then sighed. “Of course.”

“And be careful.”

“You too. Don’t do anything stupid now. Not that I care, of course.”

He smiled. “Of course. Bye, Marjorie.”

“Bye, Marius.”

He hung up and stared at the phone for a long moment, thinking a little about how odd it was that he now considered her to be one of his closest friends. Not that he had many. Still, she had once told him point blank that she didn’t like him. It was only because of Charlie and Porter that she’d even given him the time of day back then, because Porter was his teacher and Charlie was a friend. Now, after all this, she felt…she felt important to him. 

Sighing again, he wiped the hand without an IV in it over his face to wipe away the tiredness he still felt. Truth was, he wasn’t sure he was up to this next conversation. 

Telling himself to man up, he scrolled down the list and hit the next number.

“Hey! There you are! What, I move to Vegas and, suddenly, you don’t talk to me anymore?”

Unlike Marjorie, Eddie sounded wide awake and, curiously, happy. Marius couldn’t help but smile.

“Hey,” he said. 

“Oh god, what’s wrong?” Eddie said, his tone instantly serious. “You sound wrong.”

Marius snorted. He got that from one word? His brother knew him too damned well.

“I’m fine, Eddie,” he said, trying to sound as normal as possible even though the extra effort hurt his lungs a little. “I’m calling because you and Karolina may need to lay low for a while.”

“Lay low? Why? What’s wrong?”

“I think someone might’ve taken a shot at killing me tonight.”

“What? Are you okay? Where are you? I can get on a plane and—“

“No! Damn it, Eddie, no. I’m fine. You stay out there. Both of you. I want you to find Karolina and get off the grid, you hear me? Just for a couple of days while I figure this out.”

“Was it Vince?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well who else could it be? Is there anyone else you could’ve pissed off that bad?”

Marius grimaced. Not that he could think of. He just was too careful. What had happened with Vince had been an aberration – he’d never had a con get personal before. But Vince had figured him out, and had made it personal. Now it was personal for them both.

“I don’t know,” he said again.

“Where are you?”

“Safe. Don’t worry about me.”

“Don’t be stupid. Of course I’m worried about you. People care about you, Marius, not just me and Karolina. That’s what family does.”

Marius pressed a hand to his face, massaging his forehead. 

“Look,” he said, “just go to ground for a little while. I’ll call you back in a couple of hours. Marjorie’s looking into whether it could be Vince. Soon as I know something, I’ll call you.”

“Marius—“

“Just do it, please. I need you to be safe, Eddie.”

There was a pause, then, “And I need you to be safe. What about that family in Bridgeport? Maybe you can hide there again?”

Marius smiled grimly. “No. I’m not going back there again. It would only put them in danger. They’ve been through enough because of me and… Anyway. No. I’m not going back to Bridgeport. I’m going to run as fast as I can away from here, and pray it's far enough.”

“But if you leave the state…?”

“I’ll violate my parole, I know. But there’s no other way.”

Eddie sighed. “Okay. But you better call me in two hours, brother.”

“I will.”

“You better,” he said again.

Marius shook his head slightly. “Bye, Eddie.”

“Talk in two hours,” was all Eddie said in return, before hanging up.

Marius sighed lowering the phone from his ear. He stared at it blearily for a little while, then turned up the volume on the ringer. Then he looked over that the folded clothes, thought briefly about putting on his jeans, then realized he just wasn’t feeling up to the bending that would be involved.

Lying back on the bed, he put his legs under the covers, curled up a little and made sure to keep the phone in his hand for when Marjorie called him back.

And promptly fell back asleep.  
__________________________________

Taylor walked quickly into the hospital, looking around nervously, expecting, for some reason, to either see it clogged with either federal agents or gun carrying hit men. 

Instead, the emergency room entrance was fairly quiet. A few unhappy people, some tired looking staff, and a janitor. Not a hot bed of excitement. If something had happened, everyone wouldn’t look so tired or bored. 

He instantly felt relieved, and, taking on the air of someone who knew where he was going, he walked quickly around the emergency ward checking the beds for signs of Pete. No one really looked at him as he moved around, for which he was grateful. Still, he was wearing his shield on his belt, just in case someone stopped him. He intended to tell anyone who asked that he was here to interview the “hit and run” case, for surely that was what Pete had told them. 

He frowned when he couldn’t find him down on the floor. Keeping his purposeful step, he headed to the elevators and quickly read the descriptions for the various floors. Internal medicine was floor four. Seemed likely. Hitting the call button, he popped his hands behind his back and rocked back and forth on his feet as he waited.

Somewhere behind him, people were having a conversation about bedpans. Lovely.

He was grateful when the elevator came and even more grateful to be the only one on it. So far so good, but it was going to get more difficult on the quieter floors. He’d seen his grandparents, and then his parents, scope out hospitals like this when he was young when looking for skips -- he just had to remember their lessons.

Number one, always look like you know where you’re going. Number two, act like you belong. Number three, keep your head down and don’t make eye contact. Number four, don’t rush, but don’t dally.

He smiled slightly, hearing Otto’s voice underlying each lesson. His grandpa had seemed like the coolest man in the world when he took Taylor with him to track down bail jumpers. 

He walked out onto the fourth floor and, following every lesson, kept his head down as he walked down the hall. He got lucky – no one was at the main desk, so he just sailed by. A little further on, there was another nurse’s station and he slid smoothly into a closet to wait for the woman sitting there to go to the bathroom.

He glanced at his watch. Almost one in the morning. He didn’t feel even a little tired, which was amazing, considering he’d had the morning shift today.

About ten minutes later, though, he was yawning despite himself. 

Thankfully, not much later, the nurse got up from her desk and walked away. 

Keeping low, he slid into her station and caught the computer just before the lock screen came up. A quick search failed to provide a hit either for “Marius Josipovic” or “Pete Murphy” so he tried just first names. He smiled slightly when “Marius [Insert Surname Here]” showed up in room 406. He looked up – he was looking right at 408 opposite the desk. Clearing the search, he slid out from behind the desk and padded up the hall to 406. 

The room wasn’t fully dark, but it was dim. He closed the door gently behind him and checked to make sure it was Pete in the bed. His cousin was curled partially on his side, his expression tense even in sleep, and looked to be shivering slightly. Even in the half-light, Taylor could see the bruises on his face, purpling now. There was a bandage on his temple. 

“I’m sorry, Pete,” he whispered. “I shouldn’t have left you.” 

For a moment, he thought about waking him, but wasn’t sure if he should. If Pete was medicated, he might need his sleep. But he also needed to tell Pete what he knew. To be honest, he also needed Pete to explain a few things to him as well, since there were clearly things that didn’t make a lot of sense to him. 

Like why he’d been in Chinatown with Vince Lonigan when the one who was in trouble with Vince was supposed to be Marius Josipovic? 

Pressing his lips together worriedly, he looked towards the fat vertical blinds covering the picture window along one wall, and the small chair in the corner. Breathing out slowly, he moved to the window and moved the blinds, pleased to find he was looking down on the entrance and the main parking lot. If the cops or federal agents showed up, he’d see them. It wouldn’t help much with a hitman’s car, but perhaps it meant he could let Pete sleep a little while long--

Pete’s phone when off, and Taylor nearly jumped out of his skin. He stayed by the window as Pete, who now had his back to him, woke and, sleepily, put the phone to his ear.

“Marjorie?” he said softly, his voice not much more than a croak. Taylor could hear a woman’s voice on the other side, but not what she was saying, only that she sounded scared.

“Shit. He actually killed a federal agent? My god. How did Vince even…?”

The woman said some more things, and Pete say up fully, sliding his legs off the bed so he could sit forward, his back to Taylor. 

“Yeah,” Pete said, grunting slightly and putting a hand to his side. “Yeah, I hear you. No, you should absolutely close up shop. If his reach is long enough to murder that agent, it’s long enough to find all of us. Get out of there. I’ll call my brother and Karolina and tell them what’s happening.”

Taylor’s brain short-circuited for a moment. _Brother?_

She said something else, and Pete sighed, then trembled, his hand still pressed to his side.

“No, I can’t go back to Bridgeport. I won’t. The family is safer if I just go away. I’m not going to risk any of them getting hurt because of me. I—“

She obviously said something else, because then Pete seemed to get angry.

“No! I’m not involving them! I don’t care that he’s a cop! It’s just too dangerous. Julia will understand, she’ll… she’ll tell them something. She might even tell them the truth about me and Pete. It had to come out anyway. Even before this happened, I knew tonight was my last dinner with them. I’d just wanted…one more night.”

_Me and Pete?_ Taylor almost freaked out right there.

Then Pete… or whoever he was…seemed to deflate, his back bowing deeply.

“I know,” he said quietly into the phone. “I…It was… I think the truth is we’re not meant to be happy, Marjorie, people like us. We don’t get to have families. We just either end up alone, or dead.”

Taylor’s anger deflated some at just how pathetic Pete…Marius…this _stranger_ sounded, but his hands were still gripped into fists as Marius finished the call by chuckling weakly and agreeing he had been “maudlin” and to “blame the meds.” Then he pulled the phone away from his ear and hung up.

Marius sat there staring at his phone, while Taylor did everything he could to control his anger before confronting him. Then, suddenly, Marius straightened, his whole back tensing up. Slowly, carefully, he turned his head and looked over his shoulder. His eyes widened when he saw Taylor standing there.

“Taylor?” he said weakly. He was clearly terrified, his body leaning away from whatever he was seeing in Taylor’s face.

“Marius?” Taylor said through gritted teeth.


	4. Acts and Omissions

The man in the bed didn’t deny it, he just stared as if waiting for a blow as Taylor came around the end of the bed. 

“You are Marius Josipovic, aren’t you?” Taylor said.

Marius blinked, then, slowly, he inclined his head. “Yes.”

“So who was the other guy, the one with Aunt Maggie?”

“That’s your cousin. That was Pete.”

Taylor snorted, thinking back to that evening. It made sense, except…

“Why did Aunt Maggie lie to us? Why did she keep up the lie that you were Pete?”

Marius swallowed, and he looked down at his phone, then back up again.

“I’ll answer all your questions,” he said. “I will, but I need to call someone first. Please. Someone very dangerous is—“

“Vince Lonigan?”

Marius opened his mouth, then closed it again. 

“Yeah.”

Taylor’s jaw tensed, then he nodded. “Go ahead.”

Marius hands shook as he quickly found the name on his phone and called the number. He put the phone to his ear and closed his eyes, his breathing shaky.

“Hi Eddie,” he said. “Yeah. I…Yeah. It’s Vince. He killed the federal agent that shot him, the primary witness in his case. And Mukherjee has gone underground.” He opened his eyes, looking down at the floor. “Marjorie says the feds are trying to find you, me and Karolina now, since we’re their best shot of keeping Vince from ever getting out. Which means Vince will be after us as well. You need to hide. If Karolina hasn’t signed over her cut yet for that casino, get the money and run.”

He listened for a moment, then closed his eyes again. A tear ran down his face. 

“Yeah. I know. I don’t know for how long. I’ll…I’ll think of something.”

“You can tell the feds what you know,” Taylor said, crossing his arms. “Help them put Vince away.”

Marius opened his eyes and looked up at him. There was a clear lack of faith in that suggestion in his gaze.

Then he said into the phone, “No that’s…He’s… It’s no one you need to worry about, Eddie. I’m fine. Just do what I ask, please. I’m going to get rid of this phone. Keep yours. I’ll call you from a burner as soon as I can. And—“

The voice on the other side of the phone shouted, and even Taylor heard Eddie say, “Stop lying to me! I know you’re in more trouble than you’re saying! You’re hurt! Please! Who is with you? Tell me the truth!”

Marius just stared at Taylor. He breathed slowly in and out, and Taylor could almost see his mind working.

“Eddie,” he said quietly into the phone, not taking his eyes off Taylor. “I am telling you the truth. Yes, I’m hurt, but I’ll be fine. And the person with me is a cop, and a good man. I honestly don’t know what’s going to happen right now, but I’m going to do whatever I can to make sure that Vince doesn’t get a chance to go after you or anyone else that I care about, ever again. Do you hear me?”

He paused, his brow furrowing slightly at the lack of response, and looked down. 

“I said, do you hear me?” he snapped.

Taylor knew that tone of authority. It was the command of an older brother. He’d used it enough times with Julia and Carly.

The voice on the phone muttered the word “yes” and Marius sighed. 

“Good,” he said. “I promise, I’ll be in touch…”

Eddie started talking quickly again, but Marius held his hand over the phone so Taylor couldn’t listen in. 

“No, he’s not arresting me,” Marius said. “He’s Pete’s cousin. Look, Eddie, I…” He grimaced as Eddie clearly took over the call again. “Eddie, stop. No. You’re not. It’ll make it easier for him to find us. You…stop. Stop! Just shut up and listen to me! This is not a joke. You will do what I told you to do! You got it?”

The outburst clearly caused pain because Marius suddenly bent over, wrapping his free hand around his ribs as he pressed the phone harder against his ear. 

“I know,” he said after a minute, somehow keeping the pain from his voice. He was good. “It’ll be alright. I’ll call, or someone else will. If you don’t hear from me, you can call Marjorie. Okay?”

Faintly, Taylor heard Eddie’s sullen “okay.”

Marius closed his eyes. “I’ll call soon.”

Eddie said something else then, and Marius looked pained by it, more so than the actual pain he was obviously in. 

“You shouldn’t,” he said, almost in a whisper. “Bye, Eddie.”

A moment later, he hung up the phone and stared at it for a moment.

“Shouldn’t what?” Taylor asked. He suspected that this Eddie had said he’d wanted to come help Marius. He wondered where the guy was. Was he nearby? If he could figure that out for Roby…

But Marius didn’t answer. 

“You said you’d answer my questions,” Taylor said, trying but not quite able to keep his anger out of his voice. “All of them, you said. What shouldn’t he do?”

“Love me,” Marius said softly. “He said he loved me. He shouldn’t. I'm no good for him.”

Somehow, even with the knowledge now that this man was a liar, a con, Taylor knew that was the truth. And he could see, as plain as day, that Marius wished it weren't true. 

Somewhere behind how furious he was right now, how incredibly hurt Taylor felt by all of this, he couldn’t hate this man, even though he really, really wanted to, because it was obvious that Marius hated himself even more.

He crossed his arms and started walking back and forth in front of Marius, needing to shake off all the emotions roiling through him, to gain back some semblance of calm. Marius remained quiet, waiting. His face had smoothed out, his eyes looked dead.

“I just…I need to understand,” Taylor said finally. “I need to understand why you did this to us.”

“I needed a place to hide when I got out of prison, a place where I could score some money. Based on Pete’s stories, I mistakenly thought your family was wealthy. By the time I knew the truth, it was too late to do anything else.” 

“Well, that…that sounds almost like the truth.”

“I no longer have a reason to lie,” Marius said without inflection.

“I don’t know that, because I don’t actually know anything about you. But assuming it is…” Taylor drew in a deep breath. “What was the money for?”

“Vince. He threatened to have me killed if I didn’t pay him a hundred thousand dollars in one week.”

“And you didn’t just run?”

“He had my brother and another friend of mine named Karolina.”

_Oh._

But it could still be a lie. Taylor tried to keep that in mind as he continued to pace.

“Well, he doesn’t have them now,” Taylor said. “What do you plan to do?”

Marius kept his eyes down. “Run.”

“What about Vince? He could get out.”

Marius closed his eyes. 

“If you testify—“ Taylor began.

“At best, I go back to jail for violating my parole. At worst, he kills me and everyone I care about.”

“You could try to make a deal,” Taylor suggested. “Your testimony in return for a waiver for the parole violations.”

“Maybe, but I don’t place long odds on the feds working that hard to keep me alive after I testify either.” Marius looked up. “How much do you know about Vince Lonigan?”

Taylor shrugged. “Not much.”

“You know he was a dirty cop?”

Taylor frowned. 

“He made his money covering up a lot of different kinds of illegal activity, but the one he favored the most was gambling dens. That’s how we found him, my brother and me, since it’s a good place to stake out marks for grifts. Anyway, he had a lot of ill-gotten money to burn once he finally decided to retire from the NYPD, and so I worked a con persuading him to start his own illegal gambling establishment—he gave me a hundred thousand dollars seed money. My goal was to create a situation where he’d have to run before earning any money. I’d then get everything he invested. What I didn’t count on was how smart he was – he cottoned onto to the con early and, with Winslow as backup, killed a good friend of mine in front of me. Since he was going to have Winslow kill me next, I…I shot a blank in Winslow’s face and ran—“

Taylor’s eyebrows lifted. “Is that how Winslow’s face got messed up?”

“Yes. And why he wanted to kill me so badly, even though he was only supposed to be a delivery boy.”

Taylor snorted. Made sense. “And so, you ran after shooting Winslow and then, what, held up a bank, so you’d be arrested before Vince’s goons got to you?”

If he was surprised that Taylor knew that, Marius didn’t show it. He just nodded. “It was the only thing I could think of; I needed to buy time because Vince still had my brother. What I didn’t expect was for Vince to want me to pay him back that hundred thousand when I came out, even though he got the gambling establishment I bought with it and it had made him filthy rich.”

Taylor sighed, his arms still crossed. 

“My point in telling you that story,” Marius said, “was to explain that, because Vince came from the force, it stands to reason that he still knows people there, people like Winslow. It’s probably how he managed to find a hitman willing to take out a federal agent.” He looked up again. “I assume you know about that part? That I helped take Vince down by getting him arrested for attempted murder?”

Taylor nodded. “Yeah.”

“It’s why I needed your family’s money. I thought, if I could pretend to be Pete, I could maybe borrow some money, use it to get back at Vince, then bring it back. All of which I did do.”

Taylor’s gaze narrowed. Was that supposed to make this all better? 

“Except you did more than that, didn’t you?” he challenged. “You brought that creep Winslow into our lives. He threatened Carly and the kids, terrifying them at the house. And do you have any idea what you did to Grandma? What she’s been through because of that? She killed him saving you! And we had to cover it up—we could all have gone to jail. She almost did go to jail! I had to cover it up. Do you have any idea what that means?”

Marius grimaced. “I never meant—“

“Don’t.”

Marius nodded, lowering his head again. 

Taylor took in a deep breath, to get his temper back under control. “And even after you got Vince put away, you stuck around. Why?”

Marius closed his eyes. “Maggie.”

“What does that mean?”

“She was in trouble with someone who was even crazier – at least at the time – than Vince. They came after me, thinking I was Pete, to get to her. She…needed me to be Pete so that the real Pete would be safe.”

Taylor frowned again. “The guy who threatened to burn down the farm with all of us inside?”

“Yeah.”

Taylor looked to the wall, then back again. If true, that wouldn’t actually have been Marius’ fault. But, again, how did he really know if Marius was telling the truth?

“And after she left? Why didn’t you leave then?”

“I…don’t know.” Marius shuddered. “I guess…I don’t know. It was stupid of me. I…I’m sorry.” His brow furrowed, and, for the first time, Marius seemed truly uncertain about what he was saying. Or perhaps thinking. 

Taylor frowned, thinking back to Marius telling his friend Marjorie that people like them didn’t get to have families and that he’d just wanted “one more night.” Marius hadn’t known Taylor was behind him. That had been the truth. 

And some stupid part of Taylor wanted to sit down next to him and wrap an arm around his shoulder as if he were still his cousin, to tell him it would be alright. Except he was also still angry, and it was more comfortable for him than compassion, because intended or not, Marius’ shit was backlashing onto his family now and he could not forgive that.

He gripped his hands into fists, digging his nails into his palms, to keep himself from lashing out. 

“Look,” Taylor said, “I can’t say that I fully accept everything you’ve told me just now, because you’re such a good liar that any of it could be a con or a half truth or something else, but here’s what I do know. That guy tried to kill you in _Bridgeport._ Whether he thinks you’ve conned us or not, he obviously knows about us. That puts my family in danger, because of you. If you run, there’s no guarantee that he won’t come after any one of us, even Carly, Ellen or Jake, if he thinks we might know where you are. You know that. But if you turn yourself in, then there’s no reason for him to do that.”

Marius said nothing, he just looked down.

“There’s a detective I met on the NYPD. She’s honest and good, and I know she’d help protect you. She knows Winslow was a dirty cop, and she’ll accept that there could be others. She’s not an idiot by any stretch of the means. She’ll make sure you’re safe. And she’ll also work with the feds to shut off Vince’s access to whatever network he’s using to get to you and your friends.”

Marius’s eyes pinched, showing he was listening, even if he obviously didn’t like what Taylor was saying.

“You let me take you to her, and I’ll…I’ll not rat you out to the family, if that means anything. It’s the best I can offer right now. I’ll let you tell them when this is over.” Taylor tilted his head. “What do you say?”

Marius didn’t say anything at first, just seemed to think. He imagined that the conman in him was doing what he could to think through scenarios, imagine possible outcomes, and intuit what his options might be with Taylor standing right in front of him. There was no question, Marius’ mind had to be _fast_ to have kept up this con for so long. Then Marius closed his eyes and sighed.

“Can you help me get dressed?” he asked softly.

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes,” Marius said. “If you heard my conversation with Marjorie, you know it’s a yes.” He looked up, gaze examining. “You swear that she’s honest?”

“I do.” 

Marius continued to study him, _reading_ him, Taylor knew now. He’d seen him do it before, but hadn’t quite understood what it meant. Now he did. 

“Then I’ll go with you.”

Taylor sighed in relief. “Thank you.”

Marius just shook his head and, with some care, pushed himself up off the bed. Taylor offered his arm, but Marius waved him off with an “I’m fine.” 

Taylor fetched the bag of clothes he saw on the bookcase and pulled out the pieces inside. 

Marius sighed again, wincing a little each time he took in a deep breath. With some care, Taylor helped him get his legs into the jeans, and then helped him put on the rest of his clothes. By the time they were done, Marius was panting in obvious pain, beads of sweat dripping down his face. He sat again, his limbs shaking as he obviously tried to get his body back under control.

Taylor winced, his anger telling himself not to care, but some sense of family still tugged at him. Plus, Marius was doing the right thing by them; he was going to let Taylor take him to Roby. He felt a little like he was at war with his more logical self, thoughts of letting Marius off at the closest train station entering his mind. This must have been how Julia felt, except…except that girl hadn’t been family.

And, despite it all, Marius still felt like family. It was annoying that he couldn’t shake that off. 

Marius sighed, the shakes apparently subsided, then smiled that joker-ish smile. “We can go now,” he said, his voice rougher than it had been before. “I might take that hand this time though.”

A new thought came to Taylor then, realizing a bit that his anger and hurt hadn’t asked something obvious. 

“I forgot to ask,” he said, “what did the doctors say? Are you okay to go?”

Marius just blinked once, and the smile stayed in place. 

“I’m fine,” Marius said, his voice even. “I have a concussion, a bad one, but the rest is just bad bruising. Nothing broken. They said I just needed rest.”

Taylor stared at him. That had been a lie. It was so obvious now, and it made him hesitate. Marius obviously sensed something, because he stood up. 

“Can I ask one more favor?” he asked.

Taylor frowned. “What?”

“Julia knows that my parole officer will be looking for me tomorrow; it’s my standard Monday meeting. She has his number. Can you call him, tell him what’s happening?”

“Oh, he already knows,” Taylor said. Marius’ eyebrows lifted.

“What do you mean, he knows?”

“Isn’t it obvious? The feds already contacted him, looking for you. He’s probably aware of the whole thing. He gave them your records. They already checked your residence, your place of work and, apparently, your ex-girlfriend’s place in Connecticut.”

Marius blinked, then his eyes widened. “What? Are you sure?”

“Yeah. After I dropped you off, I spoke with that detective friend of mine. She’s the one who told me everything.”

“No, I mean…did you just say, my ‘ex-girlfriend’s’ place?”

Taylor frowned slightly, then realized that he’d meant to ask about that earlier. Roby had said the ex-girlfriend was in _Connecticut._ Why would Marius Josipovic have an ex-girlfriend in Connecticut?

The answer was as obvious as the fear on Marius’ face. She’d been covering for him with his parole officer. _Oh god._

“Julia,” Marius whispered. “If Vince’s got a pipeline into the feds, then they could have that information. They could think she’d know where I am.”

Taylor pulled out his phone, but Marius was faster, telling his phone to call Julia and then hitting the speaker button. 

After several rings, he just stared at Taylor, his fear fully evident now. 

“Julia,” he said to her voicemail when it picked up, “you have to get out of there. Go to Lance’s or the police station. Take your gun. Hurry. And call me back.” He hung up. 

“She said she’d stay up until I called, to tell her how you are,” Taylor said, staring at Marius’ phone. “Something’s wrong.”

Marius nodded. “We have to get there.”

Taylor shook his head. “How fast can you even walk?”

“I…not fast, but you can get me a wheelchair.”

Taylor shook his head then. “No, there’s no time. I’ll go and—“

“You’ll need me if they have her! It’s the only way.”

“I—“

“Taylor, please! It’s me they want. You have to take me with you.”

Taylor frowned deeply, but his need to protect his sister prevented him from even questioning as he ran out of the room to find a wheelchair.  
_________________________________

Julia watched the phone ring on the coffee table from her seat on the couch, her arms by her sides and her hands pressed into her thighs, even though she ached to grab it.

The man sitting opposite her on the chair, gun in his hand, leaned forward to look down at the phone. He was huge, about the size of a linebacker, with a dark fuzzy beard and even darker, beady eyes. They sat in darkness, lit only by the light of the kitchen, so the light from the phone made him look ghoulish.

“Who is Pete?” he asked, his voice gruff. 

“My cousin,” she said.

“Why is he calling you at this time of night?”

“Because, before you showed up, I called him earlier and left him a message. I told him what you did to Marius, running him off the road. They’re friends – I thought he should know. He’s probably calling to find out whether Marius is alright.”

The man grunted. After a moment, the phone showed a message. 

“Play it,” he said. “On speaker.”

Julia grimaced. Reaching forward, she opened the phone and hit the voicemail button.

Together, they listened to Marius’ voice warning her to get out of the house. She swallowed nervously, looking up at the behemoth sitting opposite her. If he knew Marius’ voice then she was so screwed. He met her gaze evenly.

“Sounds like your cousin has figured out that someone might come after you, to find his friend.”

Julia smiled thinly, hiding her relief. “Looks like,” she said. “I meant it, you know, what I said earlier. Marius won’t come back here. I’m his ex. He was only out here tonight because he wanted to say goodbye to me and my family. If you think he’s going to—“

“Call your cousin back.”

“What?”

“You showed me that you don’t have Marius’ number in your phone, because Marius only uses burners. Makes sense. So, I believe you can’t reach out to him. But your cousin might know how to reach him. Call him back and tell him to tell Marius that I’m here. If Marius doesn’t come, I start cutting pieces of his pretty ex.” He gestured at Julia with his gun. “That’s you, in case you didn’t know.”

Julia gripped her hands into fists. “But… but what if he can’t reach him? Or what if Marius has already run too far to get back here in time?”

“Unless he’s on a plane, he can’t be more than a few hours away. I’ll give him…” He looked at Julia’s phone again. “…Five hours to get back here. If he doesn’t?” He shrugged. “Then you show me where you keep your cooking knives.”

Julia huffed a defensive laugh, her terror coming out in the form of a giggle. Taylor had always said her reactions to things were odd. 

“Call him!” he barked. “And put it on speaker.”

With a shaking hand she picked up the phone and hit Pete’s number. Putting it on speaker as ordered, she rested it back on the coffee table.

Marius picked up almost immediately, though he was keeping his voice low.

“Julia? Oh thank--”

“Pete,” she said, cutting him off, “Do you have a way of reaching Marius?”

There was a brief pause, then, “Yes. Why?”

“Because there’s someone here looking for him,” she said, looking at the stranger in her living room. “And he says, if Marius doesn’t come to my house in the next five hours, he’s going to start cutting things off of me.”

There was another pause, then, “He’ll be there.”

She nodded. “Okay,” she said. “And--“

“And if I even smell a cop between then and now,” the man said, “I’ll just put a bullet in her skull and find your friend another way. Maybe through you. Get me?” 

“I get you,” Marius said, and Julia could hear the anger in his voice. “He’ll be there.”

The man nodded and hit the button to end the call. Julia exhaled shakily. She looked at him and nodded.

“He’ll be here,” she said.

“You better hope so,” he replied.   
_______________________________________

Marius hung up the call as they burst out the doors of the hospital and booked it across the parking lot, the wheelchair's wheels rattling on the pavement. 

“We need a plan,” Marius said breathily as they skidded to a halt next to the classic car.

“My plan is I’m going to kill that guy if he touches one hair on my sister’s head,” Taylor said, leaving Marius by the passenger side as he ran around to open up his door. Marius gingerly stood up, trying to ignore the battering ram that had returned to his skull with all the movement. He had a hard time finding the door handle, because his vision blacked out briefly. 

“Get in!” Taylor roared as the car came to life. The sudden noise helped to clear his head, and Marius got the door open and practically fell into the seat. He hadn’t even closed it behind him before Taylor was squealing out of the parking lot, his tires smoking on the pavement.  
______________________________________

“Doctor Seevers?” a technician said, walking up to her on the emergency room floor. “I have those test results you wanted, on the car accident victim.” She handed her a tablet.

“Thank you,” Seevers said, quickly scrolling down the information. Immediately she frowned and looked to the nurse behind the desk nearby.

“Jamal,” she said. “Call up and find out who is on call in the surgical wing. We’re going to need them tonight. Send them the file on Marius, updated with these results. Then call up to the fourth floor and tell them to wake Marius and start prepping him for surgery. I’ll head up there in a couple of minutes to tell him what’s happening.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, picking up the phone. 

Seevers shook her head. Still going through the information on the iPad. Marius was lucky—a few more hours, and he’d have been in real trouble.

“Doc?” Jamal called. She looked up. He looked afraid. “It seems he’s gone.”

“Oh,” she said, “well, shit.” She held out her hand. “Call the police and give me the phone.”


	5. A Terrible Plan

“We need a better plan than you barging in there and killing that guy,” Marius said, holding onto his side as hard as he dared. He really felt terrible; whatever medications he’d been on had clearly worn off.

Taylor just grunted as he sped back up 95. 

“Taylor, you have to think about this.”

“I am thinking about _this_ ,” Taylor snarled. “It’s all I’m thinking about. My sister is in danger and you’re the reason.”

“I meant that we need a plan.”

“Fine. How about I trade you for her, huh?” 

“You know that won’t work, not unless we’re clever about it. He’ll just kill both of us as soon as he sees me. And there may be more than one of them. I wouldn’t be alone if I were him.”

Taylor breathed out heavily.

"I didn't actually mean that I'd trade--"

“I have an idea,” Marius said. “Will you listen?”

He watched at a dozen different emotions passed over his erstwhile cousin’s face. Eventually, Taylor sighed.

“I’m listening.”

“Good. You need to get off at Stamford. There’s someone there who can help us with a car.”  
____________________________________

They had moved to the kitchen, Julia eyeing the knives as Brock (as she’d decided to call him since he never gave her a name and his neck was wider than his head) made himself some tea. Seriously. Tea. Earl Grey. 

He watched her with a small smile as he stirred honey into the Styrofoam cup he’d brought in with him, then gave her the spoon to wash in the sink. As she took it, she thought about how, in the movies, the heroine would threaten something like how she could gouge out the bad guy’s eyes out with a spoon. But, honestly, unless he was unconscious, how would she even get close enough? 

So, she washed the spoon.

“Tea can be soothing, you know,” he said. “You should have some.” 

She glared at him she put the spoon away. He actually smiled as he blew on the tea to cool it.

“What about your buddy?” she asked. “Doesn’t he want tea?”

Brock shrugged. His “buddy” was another hitman named Matt sitting on one of her neighbor’s roofs. She'd learned he had a sniper rifle with a silencer, because when she tried to escape a couple of hours ago, a bullet had taken a chunk of wood out of the porch frame inches from her head. From the angle, she guessed he was on the Millers’ roof which made sense as the Millers hatred of trees probably created an ideal snipers nest.

“He’ll be fine,” Brock said. “He doesn’t drink on overnight stakeouts. I’ll buy him something when this is all over with the proceeds from your dead ex-boyfriend.”

He smiled again. She wanted to vomit.

She glanced then at the clock on the microwave. It had been almost four hours. She’d spent most of that torn between terror and tedium. On the latter, though, whenever she thought she might be more bored than afraid, her body would involuntarily tremble as if to mock the idea.

She knew that, once Marius called, things would happen very quickly and, at the end, she’d either be dead, Marius would be dead or both of them would be dead. Or…Marius figured a way out. To be fair, she wasn’t sure what that way out could be, because as soon as Marius showed his face, Brock would put a bullet in his head. There was no talking with a professional hitman – this guy did not care where he did the deed, he’d just do it. And Julia would follow right after.

God, the kids! What would her kids do without her? They needed their mother! 

Her body trembled again, and she gripped the edge of the sink in an effort to calm down. 

She just had to trust Marius. He’d find a way out of this. It was what he did.

As if on cue, the phone rang. Pete’s name appeared on the screen. She just stared at it, her doubts overcoming her ability to move.

“Answer it,” Brock said.

Julia grimaced, and reached for where she’d left the phone on the countertop and hit speaker.

“Pete?” she called.

“Hey, you okay?” Marius said.

“No,” she said. “But I’m not hurt if that’s what you’re asking.”

He paused. “I’m sorry, Julia.”

“I know you are. You always are.” 

He sighed. “Am I on speaker?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“And he’s still there?”

“I’m here,” Brock said. “Is Marius here?”

“Yeah. I’m pulling up in front of the house.”

Brock frowned and picked up Julia’s phone to hand to her. With his other hand, the one holding the gun, he gestured for her to go to the front of the house. At the same time, his own phone dinged and he pulled it out. A text from Matt confirming that a car was coming down the street, she imagined.

Holding her phone in trembling hands, Julia headed to the front of the house, pulling back the curtain on the front window. Outside, the night was giving away to dawn, the sky that wispy whitish color that suggested the sun was going to burst onto the scene at any moment, but, for now, everything was sort of gray. What did they call it? False Dawn? It felt like an awful time of day to die.

At the end of her walkway, a non-descript, dark colored sedan slid up to the curb and came to a stop. Someone was in the front seat, but the interior was dark, preventing her from seeing who was inside. 

“I can’t see who is inside,” Brock said, in echo of her own thoughts.

“Fair enough,” Marius said. “Hang on.” 

A moment later, the car’s interior lights came on and you could clearly see Marius in the front seat. He looked up at the house and Julia felt her heart sink; part of her hadn’t wanted him to come. She didn’t want him to die. 

Brock snorted. “Okay, I see him. Now tell him to get out of the car.”

Julia drew in a sharp breath; she had to tell Marius not to do it, to warn him about the sniper! Bur Marius was faster than her.

“No,” he said simply. The interior car lights turned back off and Julia nearly sighed in relief. “In fact, the car is going to remain running. If I don’t see you walk out with Julia alive and unhurt, I’m going to take off and you will never find me.”

Brock frowned. “Why would I care about you?”

“Oh,” the interior lights turned back, “Because I’m not Pete. I’m just using his phone and, since I’m sure you have my photograph, you know I’m Marius Josipovic.” He waved the phone at the house. “And I’m not getting out of this car until Julia is safe.”

Brock snorted, and then typed something into his phone.

Julia jumped as the sound of a soft pop, and a crack appeared in the driver’s side window right about where Marius’ head was.

“Oh,” Marius said dryly, and she could see him glaring at the house, “I apparently forgot to mention that the car’s windows are bullet proof. Nice try though. Now show me Julia.” He turned the interior lights off again. 

“That’s not the way we’re going to play this,” Brock said. “Get out of the damn car.”

“So you can put a bullet in my brain and then one in hers? No way.” 

“That’s not a request.”

“You literally just took a shot at me. Why would I get out before I know she’s safe? That’d be idiotic.”

“He didn’t—“ Julia began, wanting to tell Marius that Brock hadn’t fired that shot, but Brock grabbed the phone from her and wagged a finger in her direction.

“Listen to me, Marius,” he said into the phone. “If you don’t get out of that car before I count to three, she—“

“Seriously? Three? Christ, this isn’t a movie,” Marius said. “Look, the only reason I’m here is for Pete; he begged me to come here, so I’m here, but if you kill Julia before you come out, I’m going to take off. If you kill her after you come out, I’m going to take off. The only one way this works is if you walk out and let her go; then and only then will I get out of this car. So, what’s it going to be?” 

Brock frowned. “No deal,” he said. 

Marius sighed heavily. “Why not?”

“Because I’m also not an idiot, and I know this is a trick.” Brock leaned forward slightly, looking in both directions out of the window. Then he handed Julia back her phone so he could type something into his own. At the same time, he asked Marius: 

“For one thing, how do I know you’re alone? Where’s the real Pete?”

“Arizona, I think.”

Brock smirked. “Then why do you have his phone?”

“Because he lent it to me and I never gave it back. Julia still has this as Pete’s number on her phone; she just didn’t tell you that you were talking to me earlier, probably because she was trying to help me. Thanks for trying, though, Julia.”

Julia looked down as Brock sneered at her. Then the huge man shook his head.

“I still don’t believe that Pete’s not here,” he told Marius, looking back out the window. “How do I know he’s not right outside the door getting ready to jump me as soon as I come out?”

“You don’t, but I’m guessing you were watching the farm for a while so you could hit the right car as I left, yes?”

“Maybe.”

“Then I’m also guessing you identified everyone inside. You’ll know Pete wasn’t there, because he’s not anywhere nearby. I phoned him after Julia called earlier to let him know what was happening. That’s when he begged me to come here and help her.”

Brock’s phone dinged, and he frowned as he read it. Craning her neck, Julia could just about read Matt’s text – something about “no other cars or people that I can see. He’s alone.”

Brock put his phone down and pursed his lips. 

“Say I believe you,” he said. “Then that leads me to my next question, what are you really hoping to achieve with this car shit?” He arched an eyebrow. “To be honest, I figured you’d try to break in here and rescue her.”

“Because that wouldn’t have guaranteed that she’d get out of this alive. I owe Pete to try to save his cousin. That doesn’t mean that I won’t try to save myself once she’s safe, but, right now, I need to make sure she’s safe and away from you. This car gives me leverage.”

Brock looked at the text from Matt again, then out the window at the car, his gaze narrowing in obvious thought.

“Oh, in case you’re also thinking about blowing out the tires,” Marius said over the phone, “these suckers are run flats. I can still take off and get pretty damned far pretty damned fast. So…are you coming out or not?”

Brock sneered, typed something to Matt, and, when it dinged another negative reply about anyone else being is sight, he gave a nod.

“Alright,” he told Marius. “We’re coming out.”

Brock grabbed Julia’s arm hard enough to bruise, and she gasped in pain at the cruel handling.

“I said unhurt!” Marius snapped, and for the first time she could hear a break in his armor. “You do not hurt her! I will kill you if you do!”

Brock just snorted a laugh, as if amused. Then he yanked on her arm, propelling her before him towards the door. 

“We’re coming out,” he said 

“Don’t be so rough,” she snapped, unable to stop herself as she opened the door.

“Don’t talk back,” he replied, shoving the gun in her back. “Or you’ll be the first to die.”

She shuddered as she stepped out into the cold early morning air and tried to keep her head high. Brock shoved her down the steps off the porch, causing her almost to trip. When they were finally down and only about a foot from the steps, he stopped, obviously using the house as protection from the rear. He then placed the gun to her head.

“Now,” he called. “Get out of the car, Marius.”

“Not until you let her go,” Marius said over the phone.

Brock growled, then said, “How do I know you’ll not just drive off as soon as I let her go?”

Marius seemed to consider that for a moment, then the car turned off. 

“That’s supposed to help?” Brock said.

“It’s a sign of good faith,” Marius stated over Julia’s phone. “But I’m still not getting out until you let her go.”

Julia just stared up at Brock, who was clenching his teeth in clear frustration. 

“Let her go now,” Marius said.

Brock sighed, but released his grip on her arm. She took a step away as he pointed his gun at the car.

“Now get out.”

“I want to see her get in her car and drive away.”

“No. She’s my leverage. I do that, and you’ll drive away.”

Marius seemed to consider that. Then said, “Then let her go inside the house.”

“What?” Julia said. How would that keep her safe?

“She’s not going anywhere,” Brock said.

“Yes, she is. She’s going into the house. Once she’s inside with the doors locked, I’ll get out of this car.”

“Marius, no!” Julia said. “You can’t! He’ll kill you!”

“Why would I agree to let her go inside?” Brock asked.

“Because if she goes into the house, after you kill me, you can still go after her, but at least this way, she has a fighting chance of surviving until the police get here.”

“What police?” Brock asked.

“The ones she’s going to call as soon as she’s in the house. Now go inside, Julia, take your phone with you.”

“She won’t call them,” Brock said. “You’d go to jail for violating your parole and all the petty crimes you committed since getting out. And, if you do that, you know you aren’t going to survive. Hell of a lot easier to get to you in jail then out here, and you know it.”

“She won’t call them to save me; she’s going to call them to save herself because I’ll already be dead. Julia, go inside.”

She was shaking her head, angry and frustrated at the whole thing, tears tracking down her face. 

“You can’t get out of the car, Marius,” she said shakily. “Please. There has to be another way.”

“Julia, please. Go inside.”

She looked at Brock, who returned her gaze stonily, then to the car.

“Julia! Go inside! Now!” Marius shouted over the phone.

She jumped, then turned and ran up the stairs into the house. Slamming the door behind her, she locked and bolted it, and then turned towards the kitchen to get a knife. Her eyes widened at the sight of Taylor in the kitchen doorway, his finger to his lips. 

“There’s a sniper on the roof of Number 54,” she whispered urgently as she ran up to him. “Even if he manages to avoid being shot by that meathead outside—“

“We know,” Taylor whispered, just as urgently. “Go hide in the basement, behind that false wall. You can barricade yourself in.”

“What? No! I can help! Do you have your spare? Brock took mine.”

“Brock?”

She bobbed her head. “That’s what I’m calling him. Give me a gun! I can help.”

“I don’t have time to argue about this with you. Go downstairs!”

“Give me a gun! That guy just terrified me for six hours! I owe him! You go take care of the guy on the roof, I’ll help Marius.” She held out a hand.

“I’ll give you a gun,” he said, kneeling to pull his spare revolver out of his ankle holster, “but you’re not helping. You take it and—“

“I already told you, I’m not going any—“

A flash of light and a massive bang that blew out the windows in the house sent her stumbling into the kitchen with Taylor, both falling to their knees. Too shocked to speak, she looked out the doorway towards the front of the house – to the bright flames visible through her curtains.

“Marius!” she screamed. Taylor was already on his feet, running to the front of the house.  
________________________________

_Two minutes earlier_

Marius watched as Julia ran inside, relieved that she was finally away from that creep and, hopefully, safe. 

“Now get out,” the hitman called out. “Get out or I follow her in there and start shooting.”

Marius swallowed, hanging up the phone as soon as she’d gone inside with it. He’d already shifted over to the passenger side of the car, and hoped that Taylor had had enough time to deal with the guy on the roof, and to get around the back of the house and inside. If he did, then this might not end up as horribly as he feared.

He gave a tiny laugh, and groaned as his insides felt like they were grating against his skin like nails over metal. 

“Get the fuck out now!” the hitman yelled.

_Now or never_. Marius opened the passenger side door and all but fell out of the car. He’d meant to stay low, but this was ridiculous. The fact that he was even having trouble getting his hands and knees under him really didn’t bode well. 

“What the…you think getting out on the opposite side from where am I is going to save you? I got legs, asshole!”

Marius didn’t care, he just got to his feet and stumbled towards the middle of the road, bent in half to stay out of the line of fire for as long as he could, and then fell again, landing hard on his side about twenty feet from the car. He rolled over and saw the hitman coming around the back of the car, gun lifted and pointed right at his head.

Taylor wasn’t going to make it in time. 

Shutting his eyes, he hit the small detonator in his hand.

The car exploded with a massive boom, the sound and heat shoving against his body, causing him to curl up into a ball. He was yelling, screaming even, but he couldn’t hear it over the blast, his arms wrapped tight around his head. Chunks of metal, plastic and glass landed on and around him, noiseless in the cacophony, and he curled even tighter. 

At some point, he stopped yelling, his voice gone, his body shivering and shuddering like it was a rattle in a child’s hand and he was powerless to stop it.

Hands were on him then, and he tried to fend them off, only to have his flailing arms gripped and held. He opened his eyes and looked up, not sure what he’d see.

Taylor, his eyes wide with worry and fear, was talking to him, yelling at him. What was he saying? He frowned, focusing on him until the words finally became clear above the whine in his ears.

“…the HELL, man? That was a last resort, you said! You were supposed to wait for me! Are you crazy?”

Hovering behind him was Julia, looking back and forth between him and the still raging heat source that had been the car they’d borrowed from Joe’s friend in Stamford. Well, I guess it wasn’t so much borrowed anymore. He’d have to replace it. 

“Pete, come on!” Taylor yelled, apparently forgetting for the moment he wasn’t Pete. “Talk to me!”

“Julia?” he asked. His voice sounded like someone was grating it with sandpaper. Taylor’s eyebrows shot up, looking over his shoulder at his sister.

She was as wide eyed as her brother as she met their gaze. But she nodded. “Yeah. I’m okay. I’m okay.”

He felt a bit better, and looked at Taylor.

“Did it work?”

“Did it work?” Taylor asked, his voice somehow pitching even higher than his yell from before. “Are you insane? You blew up the car! Last resort! You said, last resort! Why didn’t you wait for me?”

He tried to shrug. “You were late,” he said, his voice sounding even weaker than it had before. His whole head felt like it was stuffed with cotton balls, and, god, it hurt.

Taylor huffed a laugh. “Yeah, yeah, I was. I’m sorry about that, buddy. Julia was arguing with me. I’m so sorry.”

Marius smiled weakly again. “I didn’t think of that. Should…should have predicted she would.” Taylor laughed as Marius tilted his head towards the burning car. “Did…did we get him?”

“Oh, yeah,” Taylor said, nodding quickly. “You definitely got him. Dude’s not all in one piece anymore.”

“And the other guy?”

“Trussed up in the back of my car. He gave up as soon as I pointed a gun at him up on that roof.”

Marius nodded, then grimaced as pain rolled up and down his torso like boiling water out of a kettle, instinctively closing his eyes against it. His whole body tensed as he tried to ride it out. Taylor was saying something, and he felt hands rubbing at his arms, but it was like a drop of water to a man in the desert.

“You just hold on, Pe…Marius. You hold on. Help’s on the way. You’re going to be fine.” 

“Taylor, he’s…there’s blood on his lips.”

“He’s going to be fine,” Taylor replied. “You’re going to be fine.”

At some point, Taylor must have lifted him up some, because his arm was under his shoulders, and he was leaning now against Taylor’s chest. It was helping him breathe, he realized, even if the closeness bothered him. It felt like a lie.

“…an idiot! You think this was my idea?” Taylor was saying, obviously arguing with Julia. Marius was beginning to wonder if he was losing time. He felt like he was hearing only parts of conversations.

“…Hear the sirens?”

Were there sirens?

“Have you called grandma yet?”

“I…no. I don’t know what to tell her. What do I tell her?”

“I don’t know,” Taylor admitted, and Marius felt the arms holding him against Taylor’s chest grip him a little more tightly. “I don’t know.”

“It’s okay,” Marius whispered, and he knew Taylor heard him. “Tell them the truth. I’m not Pete. I'm not anybody.”

“Don’t say that,” Taylor said softly. “You’re going to be fine.”

He opened his eyes, looking up at him. “I…if…call Marjorie. Audrey knows where she is. Call her. Please.”

“You can call her yourself when you’re better.”

“No,” Marius said, weirdly angry at the platitude. “You…you call her. She has to tell Eddie. Don’t let him…let him come back. Not for me.”

Taylor frowned, but gave a nod.

“And…” Marius grimaced as the pain rolled over him again. “Tell Audrey…tell all of them…tell them…I’m sorry. It was…It was nice…to have…having a family. I liked...” He looked up at Taylor, smiling crookedly. "...liked being…family."

The arms tightened again, but Marius felt like he’d said enough for the day. When he closed his eyes this time, he let the darkness take him down, happy to finally be free.  
____________________________________

“Oh god,” Julia whispered, her arms wrapped tightly around her torso. “Is he…?”

“He’s still alive,” Taylor said, pressing his hand into Marius’ wrist, feeling the shaky pulse. “But I don’t…I don’t know for how much longer.”

She turned away so he couldn’t see her face.

“Why did you cover for him?” Taylor asked then. “Why did you help him hide who he was?”

She sighed, deep and shuddery. “Do we have to talk about this now?”

Marius coughed, blood further splattering his lips, and Taylor propped him up more. 

"Where the hell is that ambulance?" he snarled. Julia shook her head, staring down the road. Then she walked over and crouched down next to them, her hand touching Marius' face lightly.

“He’s a good man,” she said finally. “He doesn’t think so, but he is. He saved me from the screw up with Victoria. I owed him one more dinner with the family. It was all he wanted.”

Taylor nodded. 

One more dinner with the family.


	6. Decisions and Lies

Taylor couldn’t sit still. With each passing minute, he felt more and more certain that he was going to explode.

Julia had left the hospital a while ago, to go find her children and “hug them for a long, long time,” as she put it. But she promised to call Bagwell and let him know what had happened. Taylor had already called Roby, and there were three cops from his own department already here, keeping watch on the halls. Taylor himself had refused to leave the door to Marius’ room in the hospital while they checked him out, and then tried (and lost) the fight to go with him to surgery.

He looked up at the clock. How fucking long did surgery take anyway? It had been almost six hours since they’d taken Marius up to the surgical floor. What were they doing? Why was it taking so long?

Of course, it was a different sort of terror from the ambulance, when Marius had stopped breathing, and then stopped everything. Taylor’d just sat stunned in the corner as the paramedics swooped into action, talking in code and attaching more and more things to Marius from a breathing mask to IVs in both arms. They gave him shots and wiped up blood that bubbled out of his mouth and nose and…and it was horrible.

He hadn’t been there when his parents were in their accident, he’d been at school, but he felt it giving him flashbacks all the same, thinking about how they might have been handled. How the paramedics might have done all these same things, tried all these same treatments, only to fail.

And they could fail again. So easily. He’d just gotten Pete back.

He closed his eyes. No, not Pete. He’s not Pete. He’s not your cousin. He’s a stranger. A conman. A… a…. man. Who risked his life to save Julia’s. Who might have traded his life to save Julia. 

Why? Why would he do that? 

He hadn’t even hesitated when he thought she might be in trouble. 

_“I’m not going to risk any of them getting hurt because of me_ ,” Marius had said to Marjorie. Then, when he thought he was dying, his last thought was that he wanted them to know how much he’d liked having a family. 

_God damn it, Marius_. 

He opened his eyes again. They were burning with how tired he was, and the tear that ran down his face didn’t help. He was shaking too, from adrenalin or shock or…who the fuck knows. 

His phone rang as he roughly wiped the tear away. He pulled it out, frowning at the screen. Grandma. It was the third time she’d called. She was getting worried. Did Julia talk to her? He couldn’t remember.

“Hey,” a soft voice called. He looked up. The hard, plastic chair he was sitting in squeaked.

Roby looked down on him, as well she should, her pretty face alight with concern and a small smile.

“How are you doing?” she asked quietly. 

He frowned in confusion. “What are you doing here?”

“Liaison on the case for the NYPD, because of my connection to Winslow, Marius and, of course, you.”

“To me? I don’t know anything about Vince. And I never even met Winslow.” He could hear how defensive he sounded, how strained and angry his voice was, but Roby only smiled slightly and sat down on the chair next to him.

“When was the last time you slept?” she asked.

He sighed. “Do I look that bad?”

“Yeah. You do. You barely seemed aware of anything as I walked up, and from what your colleagues told me, you insisted on being here to help guard the witness. Not great guarding, Officer Bowman.” 

He just shook his head, wiping his hand down his face. 

“What time is it?” he asked.

“About two in the afternoon.”

“And it’s still Monday, right?” he said, attempting a joke. She smiled indulgently.

“Yes.” 

“Then I last slept on Saturday night, and I had the early shift on Sunday, so…it’s been a while.”

She nodded. “According to the Agent Robleski, who is sitting over there, by the way,” she pointed down the hall of the hospital to where the woman Taylor knew was the Agent in Charge for the FBI was speaking to another agent, “Marius Josipovic won’t likely be out of surgery or able to receive visitors for several more hours yet. You could go home, you know. I think there’s enough protection here between your friends from the station and the agents.”

He grimaced slightly.

“You’re no good tired, Taylor. Not like this. You’ve been through something here. You need sleep.”

He sighed again, and met her calm gaze. Did she ever get ruffled, he wondered? 

And maybe she was right. Maybe he should go get some sleep. It might help answer all the questions in his head.

But someone needed to be here, for when Marius woke up. He should have…he should have family here. Taylor wasn’t family, but…but….maybe he could be.

“Can I ask you something?” Roby asked then. She’d been quiet, watching him he knew, reading him probably as easily as Marius had.

He shrugged. Sort of ironic, that.

“Why do you care so much about Marius Josipovic?” she asked.

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You’re exhausted and refusing to leave, and clearly angry about the fact that this has happened, but, from what the Agents tell me, your only connection to this man is the fact that he knew your cousin in prison, and, at some point, dated your sister. Though…” She tilted her head a bit. “I’m not sure how those things both happened since, per the notes, Marius had no connection to your family before he met Pete Murphy, so he could only have met Julia Bowman recently.” 

Taylor said nothing, mostly because he didn’t know what to say. 

She looked up the hall at the agents. “And I’ll admit something else. The FBI may be more interested in what Marius has to say about Vince than what your connection may be to him, but I’m curious.” She looked at him again. “And I don’t like plot holes.”

He smiled slightly. “I know.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “So,” she said again, “why do you care about this man?”

“If I’m being totally honest,” he replied, “I don’t know. “

She frowned, but Taylor wasn’t finished.

“Thing is, I’ve been trying to figure it out ever since last night. All I know is that I _do._ I care. I’m genuinely worried that he might die on that table upstairs, and it scares me because I don’t want him to. And I’m worried someone might come here and try to hurt him, and I don’t want that either. As for why that is…” He shook his head. “I don’t have a good answer for you. Nothing that makes a lick of sense, anyway. Maybe it’s because he agreed to turn himself in to you to protect my family. Or maybe it’s because he risked his life for my sister when he didn’t have to.”

She didn’t reply to that, just continued to study him. After a moment, she looked down at her hands, rolling a ring around on her right hand that he hadn’t noticed before. It looked like a wedding ring, except for the wrong hand thing.

“I think it’s more than that,” she said finally. “But it’s okay if you don’t want to tell me.”

He just sighed softly, thanking her with a nod.

She looked up again. “I forgot to ask, how is your cousin Pete? The one who was in the car accident? You said he was in White Plains?”

Taylor snorted, thinking about his real cousin who’d gone with Aunt Maggie. “Yeah. He’ll be fine. Pretty sure he took off to save his skin.”

“Though he obviously did know how to get in touch with Marius as we suspected,” she said, still watching him with her examining gaze. “And Marius came.”

Taylor gave a nod. That went with the story they’d told the police and the Feds. That Pete had helped them reach Marius, and Marius had come because he owed Pete, and because he still cared about Julia. With Taylor’s help, they came up with the plan to save her. But Marius had only come if Taylor didn’t call the police, hence why he hadn’t. Taylor knew he was in trouble for that, but, so far, his boss hadn’t said much. After all, the Bridgeport police were going to take credit for capturing a professional hitman, Matthew Jefferson, the sniper, and the death of another. And the Feds were happy because getting what they wanted: Marius Josipovic. 

Assuming he didn’t die.

“Look,” she said, “I’ll say it again, he’s not going to be out of that surgical ward for a while. Hours, probably. You should go home and sleep. I’ll stay. You trust me, right?”

He looked at her, and gave a nod. She smiled.

“You’ll call me if anything happens,” Taylor said. “Good or bad. And when they think he’ll wake up, tell Julia and me, we should be here.”

“Of course,” she said.

He stood, and wobbled a bit. He really was tired. She stood up with him, touching his arm gently to steady him.

“You alright to drive?” she asked.

“I’ll get one of these guys to take me home,” he said, waving at the two Bridgeport officers standing in the hall with the FBI. 

She inclined her head. “I will call,” she promised.

He thanked her with a smile, and went to find a ride.  
________________________________________

“So, I’m sorry if I’m not entirely understanding this,” Audrey said, rubbing the bridge of her nose between her fingers, “but…Pete’s in the hospital, but he’s under the alias of Marius Josipovic because of some sort of witness protection thing involving Vince Lonigan and…and we can’t see him?”

They were all sitting at the dinner table, Taylor having arrived long after dinner was done because he’d slept like the dead for almost six hours, with Julia looking not much better rested, trying to explain what had happened to the rest of the family. 

For some reason neither of them could really explain, they decided not to tell the others that Pete was really Marius. Julia’s excuse had been that she thought Marius should tell them himself. Taylor’s excuse was that he still hadn’t entirely decided how he felt about it, and he didn’t need the family’s judgement clouding his own. He was still coming to terms.

“How bad is he?” Otto asked quietly, his face awash with concern and worry. Taylor knew how he felt.

“I don’t know,” he said. “He was awfully close to that explosion.”

“Explosion, my god,” Audrey said. “I still cannot believe all this. He deliberately blew up a car in front of my granddaughter’s house. Is it just me, or has Pete coming into our lives brought a whole new definition to the word ‘chaos?’”

“But how bad is he?” Otto said again. “Really.”

Taylor glanced at Julia, who just gave him a sad look.

“It’s bad,” Taylor said. “He…” He frowned.

“Just tell us, son,” Otto encouraged. 

Taylor grimaced. “I called an hour ago and, while he’s out of surgery…the prognosis isn’t good. There are so many potential complications. The doctor said, if he survives the next 24 hours, there is…a better chance that he won’t die.”

Carly immediately put her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide and tearing. Audrey’s gaze was focused downwards to the table. Otto just stared at Taylor, almost unblinking. Even Julia, who knew this already, had turned her face away.

“And we can’t see him,” Audrey said softly. “He’s dying and we can’t see him.”

“He’s not dying yet.”

“Oh come on,” Audrey snapped, glaring at Taylor as if this were somehow his fault. “Didn’t you just hear what you said? The prognosis isn’t good. Even if he makes it through the next 24 hours, it’s still only a better chance. That sounds like dying to me, Taylor. He needs his family there!”

Taylor just met her gaze evenly. There was a time when his grandmother terrified him, but oddly, since Pete had come into their lives, and with everything they’d been through, he found she didn’t anymore. Perhaps it was because he’d protected her with Winslow, or because he’d found peace with Shannon, or perhaps it came down to Pete calling him a child because of his over-reaction to the tire. Each event had been a wake-up call, and as he as he met his grandmother’s eyes, he knew he was no longer afraid.

He felt like an equal.

She seemed to feel it too, because the anger left her gaze and she looked down again.

“But you get to see him,” Otto said, sounding almost jealous.

“Because I’m a cop, yeah.”

“And Julia does too?”

“They think I’m his ex-girlfriend,” Julia said with a shrug.

“You really have to explain that to me again someday,” Audrey muttered. “Because that’s just strange.”

“I know,” Julia said, looking at Taylor. He just gave her an encouraging smile, and she smiled back. It was weirdly heartening, he thought, sharing a secret with her. 

“I’m going to head back to the hospital after this, to stay with him as much as I can,” Taylor told them then. “I’ve sort of been suspended anyway, pending the review of my involvement in everything, but I don’t think it’s going to turn into anything. My boss all but said that he thinks I’ll be back on the force pretty quickly. If not, there’s always the family business, right?” He gave a wry smile, even as Julia gave him a dark look.

Otto just shook his head. “It’s not right. We should all be able to see Pete.”

“He made this bed,” Audrey said then, “long before he saw us again.”

“You should know,” Julia said then, “that bed he made? It’s helping to take down a really bad man.”

Audrey just snorted. “From the sounds of it, if he hadn’t scammed that man in the first place, he wouldn’t be in this position.” She looked up. “And his involvement with this Vince almost got three of my grandchildren killed last night.”

Julia pursed her lips, obviously unable to deny that.

“But Pete also risked his life to make sure Julia was safe,” Taylor said. “He essentially traded his life for hers, and now he might lose it.” He shrugged. “I don’t know, but I think that says something.”

Audrey looked at him. He was challenging her now, and, from her face, she knew it.

“I’m just saying,” he continued, “we’ve all done stupid things, Grandma, even bad things. Those choices are sometimes really bad, and can hurt people. But I think, maybe, how we fix them matters too, and he fixed his mistake. We’re all fine. And we’ll continue to be fine. We might even be a little better.”

“Not if he dies,” Otto said, clearly upset by that remark.

“No,” Taylor agreed. “Not if he dies.” He frowned. “I’m just saying, for good or ill….” He shrugged. “He brought back Aunt Maggie,” he said. “He exposed Lance. He helped Julia get away from Luis and Dockery. He even stood up to me, showed me something I didn’t want to see.” He shook his head. “He’s had a good impact on this family, for all his mistakes.”

Audrey’s brow furrowed, but he knew she was listening. They all were.

“Thing is,” Taylor said, and, interestingly, he realized he’d finally made his decision about Marius, “I think I like having him around, chaos and all. If he makes through this, I don’t want to be the reason he leaves, and I don’t think Julia does either.” He looked up at her.

She was watching him, her gaze thoughtful and, perhaps, a little uncertain. He raised his eyebrows at her. She’d been lying to them about Marius for a while, and he was telling her that, as of right now, he was willing to join her in that lie. He really did want Marius to stick around. 

Slowly, Julia began to nod. She looked at Audrey.

“He’s right,” she said. “I don’t want to be the reason either.”

Audrey frowned, then snorted a laugh. “Well, it’s not like I was going to kick him out of the family,” she said. “I did that once already to his mother, and it didn’t turn out so well. I’m not stupid enough to do it again.” She shrugged. “But I think he and I need to have a conversation about taking on gangsters and corrupt cops. I don’t think it’s good for anyone’s health.”

Taylor smiled slightly. Audrey matched it with a wry smile of her own.

“You’re sure I can’t come with you when you see him?” Otto said then. “Maybe I could pretend to be a janitor or something.”

“And I could be a candy striper,” Carly added. “I look good in pink.”

Julia and Taylor both smiled at that. And Taylor stood up.

“I’ll let you know as soon as I know something, okay?” he said.

“No,” Audrey said. “But we’ll accept it for now.”

“You heading over there now?” Julia asked Taylor.

“Yeah. There’s someone I need to relieve. I also want to see if anything new has come up in the case against Vince.”

“Are you spending the night?”

“If they let me.”

“I’ll be by in the morning to take over, then, once the kids are in school. If…” She looked at Audrey. “If that’s alright. I might need to work from the hospital.”

“Of course, it is,” Otto said with a wave of his hand before Audrey could answer. “Don’t be stupid.”

“Just call us the moment he wakes up,” Audrey ordered, as if it were a foregone conclusion that it would happen.

Taylor just nodded, and turned to head to the door.

“Taylor,” Carly said, causing him to turn around. She was staring at him, her face pale but earnest.

“Yeah.”

“Tell him we love him,” she said. “Even if he’s not awake, tell him anyway.”

Taylor just smiled.  
___________________________________________

24 hours stretched to 48 and then to 72, and Marius was still with them. With each hour, the doctors grew increasingly hopeful, and it was contagious. Taylor felt better each day. 

He found himself negotiating on Marius’ behalf, when the lawyers came. He met Marius’ parole officer, covering for him just as Julia had apparently been doing for a while. Bagwell clearly thought he was a little soft in the head when he left, but it had worked. 

And he and Julia hung out more; eating lunch together and getting on better than they had in years. At some point, he realized that she was becoming his best friend. It was pretty cool.

The best news came from Roby, when she told him that they had broken the sniper and that had snowballed into even better news about the case. 

She’d even suggested to him that, when this was all over, maybe he’d like to come visit her in the city again someday, since she still owed him that dinner.

His suspension was also close to being lifted. His boss thought he’d be back at his desk on Monday, a week after this all had started.

All in all, things were going well. The only thing that kept him from actually feeling happy was the fact that Marius still hadn’t woken up. 

When three days became four, the doctors shifted their worry to the state of Marius’ mind. They started talking about comas and head trauma and the potential for damage to his brain.

And Taylor’s good mood disappeared. 

They tried all kinds of things to encourage him to wake. Julia told him stories, they played him music, they even had Eddie call in over the phone to talk to him, to tell him what he and Karolina were doing. It wasn’t working.

It was Marjorie, curiously, that finally gave them the solution.

“Marius doesn’t care about stories,” she had said, “or music. His mind doesn’t work that way. He’s been trained since he was little to solve problems. You give him a problem to solve, particularly one that might have a pot of gold at the end, and he’ll solve it.”

“I don’t understand,” Taylor had said. “What kind of problem? You mean, like…a puzzle?”

“No. I mean the kind where someone he cares about is in trouble and he needs to figure out a way to save them,” she said. “Marius thinks he’s a bad man, but he’ll take on the world to save the people he loves. And, at the moment,” she had added, “that’s you and your family. Start telling him a story that you’re in trouble, and I’ll give even odds that he wakes up before you’re even done.”

It had seemed somewhat ridiculous, but Taylor was willing to try just about anything by then.

So, six days into what the doctors were threatening could become a long term coma with little hope of recovery, he sat down with Marius and started to tell a lie about his losing his job and Julia maybe going to jail for helping Marius to fake his identity with the parole officer. After a while, he was really getting into it, even feeling somewhat angry with Marius for putting them in that (fake) position. He was about to call Marius a fucking asshole for messing up their lives, when he felt Marius grip his hand.

He looked up to see Marius studying him with a furrowed brow, his eyes barely open.

“It’s okay,” Marius had whispered. “I’ll fix it. I’ll think of something.”

Taylor jumped out of his chair with a whoop, ordered Marius not to fall back asleep, then ran out to get a doctor. 

Marius was asleep again when they came back, but the doctors assured him it was a great sign. 

Taylor called Marjorie and told her she was a genius. She told him she already knew that, but it was always nice to hear.


	7. Set A Plate For Dinner

“Not right now, Grandma. I promise, as soon as I know, I’ll tell you.”

That was Julia’s voice. Her words, along with a soft, continuous beeping was the first thing that Marius was aware of, followed quickly by the irritation of something being blown up his nose and the smell of bleach. 

_Crap._ He was in a hospital. 

At least he wasn’t dead. That was something, right? He had a vague sense of thinking he was dying, though he couldn’t entirely remember why. Something…something about…a car? Was he in an accident?

His mouth was dry, like it hadn’t tasted water for days, and, man, now he really wanted water.

With some reluctance, because his lids felt very heavy, he forced them open a little to get his bearings. It didn’t help much. Non-descript colored walls, a window with vertical blinds, a bed covered in cream colored sheets and a thin blanket. All not surprising. 

What was surprising was the sight of Taylor napping in a chair at the end of the bed, his feet propped up on the blanket. 

He looked terrible, with an inch of scruff on his face and a generally disheveled appearance. Cops weren’t allowed beards, were they? Did he get fired from his job? He had a terrible feeling that that had happened, as if he’d been told it, but couldn’t remember when. He hoped it wasn’t true, for Taylor’s sake.

He opened his eyes a bit more, blinking to alleviate the dryness, and turned his head to try to get more information on where he was and why. 

Wait, hadn’t he heard Julia’s voice? He could have sworn…

There was a transportable curtain on the other side of the bed, currently furled so not in use. There were also plenty of machines, all clearly connected to him, along with IVs. Oxygen was what was being pumped up his nose. Lovely.

He couldn’t feel much, other than a vague sense of discomfort and unease, but he also found he couldn’t move very much either. His limbs felt like dead weights, and his body like he was encased in cement.

Julia definitely wasn’t there. Why would he have imagined she was? 

No. Wait. He could hear her. She was muffled. 

Oh. She was somewhere outside of the room. It sounded like she was on the phone.

“I swear to you, as soon as he wakes up, I’ll let you know. All I can tell you is that he’s still asleep. I know it’s been days, and that’s not a good thing, but it is what it is.”

There was a pause, then:

“I swear I’m not lying to you. If he was awake, I’d tell you. He’s not avoiding you. I’m not avoiding you either, though, right now I really wish I could.”

Marius huffed a small laugh at that.

“I’ll call as soon as something changes, okay? And…tell Carly thanks again for watching the kids this afternoon. I really appreciate it. I…yes. Fine. Bye. What? No. Oh for fuck’s sake, I’m hanging up now.” Then there was a soft bang like someone slapping a wall with a hand and a muttered “goddamnit.” 

The bang was enough to startle Taylor awake, and he grunted, almost kicking Marius as he came to. He blinked a few times and then looked towards the door to the hospital room as it opened and Julia walked inside.

“She’s really getting cranky about this,” Julia said. “She still doesn’t understand why the FBI will let us see him and not the rest of the family. She keeps threatening to call them directly.”

“We’ll have to find a better excuse,” Taylor said, standing up. He stretched. “How long was I napping?”

“Not long. Ten minutes maybe? I managed to…. Oh, shit.” 

She was looking right at Marius. Taylor looked too, and suddenly he was all grins. 

“Marius!” he called, jumping over as if he would hug him, then stopping at the last minute because it was a clearly terrible idea. “You’re awake! You are awake, yes? Been a bit hard to tell, but your eyes look fully open, so…I’m going with awake.”

Marius didn’t know entirely how to respond to that, so he just nodded. He lifted a hand. 

“Hi,” he whispered. Taylor grinned again.

“How are you feeling?” Julia asked. “Is your throat sore? They said your throat might be sore and we should get you water.” Her eyebrows lifted then. “Water! Hold on, hold on. Where’s the water?” She looked at Taylor.

“Do I know?” Taylor said. “No one said anything to me about water.”

“Useless!” she snapped, and after turning in a circle, she quickly left the room, ostensibly in search of water.

“So how you doing, buddy?” Taylor said, and he rested a hand on Marius’ arm. “You alright?”

Marius tried to swallow, but nothing really happened, so he shrugged. “Think so?” he whispered. “What happened?”

“You almost blew yourself up.”

Marius frowned. He actually didn’t really remember that. He remembered…he was in a car. They were trying to rescue Julia. There was a car accident. It was all jumbled. He looked at Taylor.

“I don’t…” He frowned, then decided it might not be a good idea to admit that he didn’t remember. “…Is everyone okay?”

Taylor just shook his head as if in amazement. “Wow. You’re just…I don’t really get you.”

Marius, though, was still struggling to remember why they’d had to rescue Julia. It was because of him, because he’d cheated Vince. Vince!

“Vince!” he said out loud in a shout about as strong as tissue paper, his hand scrabbling to grab Taylor’s arm. It all came flooding back at once, the accident, the arguments, the rescue…. “What about Vince? Eddie and Karolina, you said you’d call…?”

“Vince is in lockdown,” Taylor said. “And your friends are fine. Everyone is fine, except you. We reached Marjorie soon after getting you here to the hospital. She told us she’d take care of warning everyone, and she’d also take care to make sure Eddie didn’t come back here. She’s either checked in with me or Julia every day, and has said all is quiet. Which is not that surprising, since Vince’s lawyer apparently hired those two hitmen himself. Really shady dude. It breaks attorney client privilege because it was in service of a crime, so…the FBI got their hands on a whole lot of stuff that makes your testimony against Vince a lot less important. Either way, Vince is going down.”

“Either way?” Marius said, his voice still a croaked whisper. Wow. “So…I don’t have to testify?”

“No, you’re still going to testify, because it’s going to get you out of a bunch of problems you created for yourself, like gambling while on parole, living in Connecticut and lying to your parole officer about any number of things.” He arched an eyebrow. “That dude’s intense, by the way. What is with the ‘shitbirds’ and ‘eagles?’” He put air quotes around the words.

Marius gave a tiny smile at that, he couldn’t help it. Bagwell really was a strange guy. He liked him though. Dude was very earnest.

“Anyway,” Taylor said, “you’re still testifying, which is why there’s a cop stationed outside your door and a couple of FBI Agents working out of the police station downtown while we’ve all waited for you to wake up. You’re in protective custody, and will be until you take the stand.”

“I found water,” Julia said, walking inside with two small dixie cups. “Here.” She handed one to Taylor, then leaned over until she found Marius’ bed controls. The slow movement as he was shifted to sitting position didn’t hurt, but it did increase the discomfort. The fact that it meant he could drink water more than made up for it though. 

He never knew water could taste so good. As she drew the cup away, he couldn’t help but think how beautiful she looked. Until she looked at her brother and her face contorted in annoyance. 

“Don’t drink that! It’s for Marius!” she chastised. Taylor blushed where he’d been about to drink the second cup she’d handed him, and then held it back out to her. 

“Sorry,” he said. “I mistook your intentions when you handed it to me.”

She just shook her head. “I needed a free hand to work the bed, idiot. They’re both for him. They’re just so stupidly small, those cups, I didn’t think one was enough.”

“Right.” Taylor smirked.

“You really sure you want into this family, Marius?” Julia said, taking the empty cup away and handing him the second. “I really can’t understand why.”

He’d been watching them bicker with an odd sense of enjoyment, almost warmth, but that took Marius aback. 

“What?”

They were both watching him, as if expecting some sort of great revelation or admission, but he had no idea what they wanted. Then Julia looked at Taylor, and he shrugged.

“Funny thing,” Taylor said, “turns out we haven’t actually told anyone in the family who you are.”

That caused Marius to frown. “How? You just said the FBI, the cops are here and…”

“We lied,” Taylor said. “They know all about Vince and what you did, and they know why you’re here and in protective custody, the only thing they don’t know is your name. We told them you were here under the alias Marius Josipovic for your protection. Right now, they still think you’re Pete.”

Marius just blinked, taking that in. “But why?” he said finally.

“I thought,” Julia said, “that you might want to tell them yourself, that you’re Marius and not Pete. I think they’d prefer to hear it from you and that you’d maybe do a better job of explaining how it happened, why you lied.” 

He shook his head. “I still don’t understand why?”

Taylor gave a small smile. “Because we thought you might like to stick around for a while, maybe come back here after this whole trial thing is over, and, if you do…you might want some people to have your back since you didn’t think the cops would. We’d do that, but I think you need to tell them the truth first. It has to be exhausting playing someone you’re not all the time.” 

Marius just continued to frown. “No,” he said, “I meant, why would you do that for me? I’ve…I’ve brought you nothing but trouble.”

Julia huffed a laugh, and Taylor nodded.

“That’s kind of true,” he said. “But you helped us too. Maybe not entirely intentionally, but you did. And I don’t know, me and Julia, we’ve decided we like having you around.”

Marius just stared at him. He knew his mouth was open, but he couldn’t seem to close it. 

“I think he’s speechless,” Julia said, sounding amused.

“That’s got to be a first, don’t you think?” Taylor said. “The conman who can’t talk?”

Marius blinked again, looking down and trying to fathom what they were actually saying to him. Maybe they were conning him somehow, was that possible? If so, what could they want? To get him to testify? He’d be forced to do that anyway, so it seemed. So what else could they want? It’s not like he had anything for them to take. His money, whatever he had from the two jobs he’d pulled since getting out, was sitting in an account that they couldn’t touch, so it couldn’t be that. Other than that, there just wasn’t anything about him that was useful.

Useful. Maybe that was it. Maybe they thought he could be useful.

“You expect me to work for you, or something?” he said, looking up at Julia.

She frowned slightly, as if confused, then shook her head. “No. Not unless you want to.”

“Then why?” he said. 

Taylor frowned, and looked at Julia again.

“What do you mean, why?” she said. “We just told you why.”

“No,” Marius said. “Why do you really want me to hang around? What do you want?”

That seemed to surprise them both, and, suddenly, Taylor actually looked annoyed.

“Seriously? We just told you that we’re willing to fucking forgive you for lying, and we’d be willing to have your back if Vince comes looking for you, and you’re questioning _our_ motives? What the hell is wrong with you? This is a god damned get out of jail free card, complete with family, and you’re questioning it? Take the damn card, Marius!”

“I think it might not be that easy,” Julia said softly. 

“Hell, yes, it’s easy!” Taylor snapped. “He’s just being an idiot!”

“Think about it, Taylor,” she said, reaching over the bed to touch his arm. “I’m willing to bet that no one has anyone ever given him anything that didn’t have strings.”

Taylor opened his mouth, as if to disagree, then closed it again. After a moment, his expression cleared. He looked at Marius, and, amazingly, he blushed slightly.

“Is she right?” he asked.

Marius didn’t answer, watching them both a little warily now.

“Damn,” Taylor said, and he sat down on the edge of the hospital bed. “That sucks. I’m sorry.”

“There’s no strings, Marius,” Julia said. “You know us. It’s not who we are. We’re ‘heart on our sleeves’ type people. We want you to come back here after the trial because we like having you in our lives. Because you feel like family. That’s it. No other reason. You feel like…no, you _are_ …family now.” She smiled. “We’re not going to force you to do anything. We’re just saying, if you want to come back, you can, and me and Taylor will be there if you need us to be.”

Marius finally closed his mouth, searching their faces for a lie that, deep down, he knew wasn’t there. They were being honest, and it almost hurt.

So he nodded. 

“Okay,” he said.

Taylor, who had been looking down at the ugly blanket, looked up. And then he grinned. Julia smiled too, and she patted Marius on his arm.

“Okay,” she agreed.

“Okay!” Taylor said, jumping up. “Man, I wish we could celebrate! Soon as you’re eating solid foods again, Marius, we are bringing in cake.”

“Pie,” Marius said. “I prefer pie.”

“Of course, you do,” Taylor said. “Who doesn’t?”

Marius just smiled, as Julia challenged Taylor’s liking of pie over cake, and let their bickering wash over him again like a warm blanket. Soon he was getting drowsy again, but it was fine. He wasn’t worried. He might even have something to look forward to when he woke up.  
_________________________________

Two months later, as Marius walked out of the courtroom in Manhattan into the rain, the sights and sounds of New York City hanging heavily over him in the early autumn air, he knew he had a decision to make. Taylor was here with him, talking to Detective Roby a few steps away, and, across the street, leaning against a signpost under a pink umbrella, Marjorie gave him a nod. She looked proud of him. 

His part in the story of Vince Lonigan was done, but it didn’t mean it was over. Vince had threatened him, called him a dead man even as they dragged him away, and Marius had just smiled through it all.

It wasn’t a choice really. 

Taylor walked over, looking good in his uniform. He was applying to be a detective, and Marius was sure he had a good chance. 

“Hey,” Taylor said. “How are you feeling?”

“Exposed,” Marius said. It was true. For the first time in a while, he didn’t have bodyguard. 

“That’s okay, you have me, right?” Taylor grinned.

But Marius didn’t.

Taylor’s grin faltered.

“Or maybe you don’t?” Taylor said quietly.

“You heard him,” Marius said. “As they were taking him away. I can’t do it. I can’t take that to Bridgeport.”

“Oh, come on. That was just hot air. He’s done for.”

“He’s dangerous.”

“So what, he—“

“He hired someone before while he was in custody. He can do it again.”

“Marius—“

“I’m sorry, Taylor. I want to. You’ve no idea how much. But I can’t.”

Taylor looked down.

Then suddenly Taylor was right there in his space, hugging him. Marius hated Taylor’s hugs. The man hugged like a bear suffocating his victims, but…

Then again…

Maybe it wasn’t so bad.

He closed his eyes, and hugged him back.

“Goodbye, Taylor,” he said. “Thank you.”

“I'm not saying goodbye. You come back someday. You'll find a way. And there'll be a plate set for you at dinner.”

Marius just smiled softly.

And when Taylor let him go finally, he took a step back. 

Taylor just stared at him, clearly unhappy, but not, for once, angry. "I'll see you soon, cuz," he said. He made it sound like a promise.

Marius gave a nod. "See you soon."

Taylor quirked a smile, turned and walked away down the steps. 

Marius watched him go. Then he looked across the street. Marjorie was gone as well.

With a small sigh, he walked slowly down the steps, grimacing only a little at the fading stretches of pain in his sides from the scars. A cab trundled down the road towards him and he raised a hand, flagging it down.

“Where to?” the driver asked, as Marius slid into the black leather rear seat.

Marius hesitated, desperately wanting to say Bridgeport, but his brain overruled his heart.

“JFK,” he answered. “Terminal A.”

“You got it,” the man said, pulling them away from the curb.

Marius smiled as the city trundled by. _I'll see you soon,_ he promised it. He had a plate waiting for him at dinner.  
____________________________________

THE END


End file.
